Free Market Foundation
, which was responding to the commission’s decision last week to recommend that Vodacom’s acquisition of a 30-40% co-controlling stake in fibre broadband Maziv be blocked by the Competition Tribunal. “The Free Market Foundation is alarmed that the commission is continuing its interference in the market to the detriment of economic dynamism and competitiveness,” it said, adding that the viability of growing enterprises is threatened by this.“The commission is continuing its war on free enterprise,” legal researcher at the Foundation Zakhele Mthembu said.
Its opposition to the deal – after taking more than a year and a half to make a decision – is premised on a misunderstanding of the market competition process, Mthembu said. The commission has long sought to submit that the acquisition of one company by another in the same or similar market necessarily results in less competition.
“The Free Marketing Foundation understands that despite both enterprises going beyond what one could expect any business to do, with various non-economic concessions on empowerment – including a moratorium on retrenchments, the establishment of a supplier development fund, an employee benefit scheme, new employment opportunities, and maintaining the use of suppliers controlled by previously disadvantaged persons – the commission still saw fit to deny the merger.