Lloyd Gedye
Lloyd Gedye is a freelance journalist and one of the founders of The Con.
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/ 7 September 2007

Cashing in on Telkom

If continuing talks between Telkom, Vodafone and MTN materialise into a deal where Telkom offloads its 50% stake in mobile partner Vodacom, valued at between R70-billion and R75-billion, Dimension Data chairperson Andile Ngcaba and other Elephant Consortium partners stand to be handsomely rewarded.

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/ 24 August 2007

Telkom out-Vox’d

Imagine a telephone company that pays you money to receive calls — sound like pie in the sky? Well then you haven’t heard about Vox Telecom, the new Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) tele­phone services, which offer a real, cut-price alternative to Telkom’s fixed-line offering.

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/ 20 August 2007

Big deal for newbies

Government has negotiated special, cut-rate deals through Telkom for large foreign investors in South Africa’s business process outsourcing sector. However, these special deals are only for new entrants to the sector and current industry players are upset that the red carpet is being rolled out for new entrants, while they are being ignored.

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/ 13 August 2007

Health sector ‘terribly sick’

With the spectre of price controls on private hospitals looming, market leader Netcare has called for self-regulation by the industry to ward off moves by government to set prices. Netcare found itself in the eye of a storm recently amid accusations that it benefited from non-transparent pricing and for not passing on rebates from suppliers to its customers.

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/ 3 August 2007

A costly hang-up for MTN

MTN could face a multimillion-rand fine if the Competition Tribunal agrees with Cell C and the Competition Commission that it has been involved in anti-competitive conduct. This follows the Competition Commission’s decision to refer Cell C’s complaint to the Competition Tribunal for adjudication after it found that MTN was engaging in "price discrimination".

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/ 27 July 2007

Mugabe lends business an ear

Recently Zimbabwean business leaders met President Robert Mugabe in an attempt to persuade him to halt a crackdown that is ruining the country’s economy. This is the first meeting between business and Mugabe since he ordered a 50% cut in prices in June, causing a massive shortage of goods and deepening the country’s economic crisis.

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/ 27 July 2007

Witch-hunt at SABC

South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) CEO Dali Mpofu this week asked his top 20 managers to sign letters consenting to undergo polygraph tests in an effort to determine the source of the leaked internal audit report the Mail & Guardian was interdicted from publishing last week.