Lloyd Gedye

Mooted amendments to the Competition Act, which could lead to jail time for executives overseeing collusion and price-fixing, could weaken the Competition Commission rather than give it more clout. This week Cabinet was expected to view the draft Competition Amendment Bill, which is reported to contain measures to deal with cartels in South African industries.

While the introduction of new satellite broadcasters into the South African market is floundering, e.tv is less than a month away from launching its 24-hour news channel on the DStv bouquet. The new studios and newsrooms were bristling with activity this week when editor-in-chief Debora Patta took the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> on a walk-through.

Two of the developing world’s cellphone giants are sizing each other up, while other contendors look on with interest. There is little difference between MTN and Bharti Airtel — India’s largest mobile operator — at the weigh-in, which makes it difficult to predict which company would win a bout between them.

South African consumers fed up with the delay in Apple’s iPhone reaching our shores are paying excessive prices to get their hands on "grey imports", which are cracked to work on local mobile networks such as MTN, Cell C and Vodacom. But they might not have to for much longer. Vodacom’s spokesperson, Dot Field, said the mobile operator will make an announcement on the iPhone next week.

Supermarket chains are to be pulled into the Competition Commission’s investigation into collusion in the milk industry, following a complaint by dairy farmers. Milk prices, along with other basic food products, have increased drastically in the past year.

South African mobile operators are charging up to 1&nbsp;000% more than Indian mobile operators for a minute-long call. A comparison between one of MTN’s standard pre-paid packages and Indian operator Reliance Mobile’s standard packages showed that mobile call rates in South Africa are exorbitantly overpriced.

It was a game of pass the buck in the government last week over who exactly was responsible for the decline of state-owned telco Sentech. Early last week, Sentech released a position paper in which it accused the government of failing to allocate it the funding it required to roll out its wireless broadband network.

The main development to watch in 2008 will be the implementation of the department of trade and industry’s codes of good practice. So says Rhodes University’s Reg Rumney. He says the existing sectoral charters need to be aligned with these codes and already teething problems are springing up, says Lloyd Gedye.

South Africa’s broadcasting regulator, Icasa, is under fire from all sides after the launch of what it terms a rogue broadcaster — and with potential legal challenges mounting. When Icasa licensed five subscription broadcasters in September last year, the introduction of competition to the sector was heralded as a milestone.

As the fallout from the bread price-fixing scandal grows, consumers are still not sure exactly what happened, who was responsible and what is being done about it. The executives of Premier Foods and Tiger Brands will have us believe that they knew nothing about the price-fixing and that disciplinary action is being taken against those involved, writes Lloyd Gedye.

<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=zuma_report"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/243078/zuma.jpg" align=left border=0></a>Jacob Zuma has been on an international mission, addressing investors across the world, some of whom have been worried about what would happen to the South African economy should he take over as president. However, some of those who arranged the meetings with investors are themselves colourful and controversial characters.