IRR warns of the economic costs of weaponising Competition Commission

The ANC government appears intent on weaponising the Competition Commission in a sustained campaign that is hostile to entrepreneurship, enterprise, and the free market – the key catalysts for innovation, job creation, and poverty reduction.

The Commission's latest report on the Online Intermediation Platforms Market attacks successful commercial enterprises in the digital domain and puts recent tech breakthroughs under threat. It displays an evident distaste for the commercial success of companies like Takealot that have thrived by giving consumers convenient access to goods and services. Masquerading as the protector of 'historically disadvantaged' businesses, the Commission proposes damaging 'remedies' to thriving digital platforms that will result in higher costs and less choice for consumers.

These skirmishes in the ANC's crusade for the National Democratic Revolution send a chilling message to entrepreneurs: outperform the state and you'll be marked as a counterrevolutionary. In an increasingly risk-averse global economy, South Africa needs to liberalise the investment environment, not strangle it. This is a far cry from the restrictive vision portrayed in the Commission's report.

The IRR calls on the Commission to act constructively by freeing markets instead of restricting them and to cease being a proxy for the ANC’s ideological battles.

Says Hermann Pretorius, IRR head of strategic communications: “South Africans need economic policies that boost private enterprise and economic growth instead of stifling opportunity and ingenuity. As a country, we need a government that cultivates an environment where prosperity and socio-economic advancement are within everyone's grasp.

“Economic policy must be about prioritising the real economic needs of South African consumers rather than indulging the ideological whims of Minister Patel and his comrades. Unless it abandons its relentless push for state control over socio-economic upliftment, the ANC will ensure its own downfall by this decade's end – with no one to blame but itself.”

Media contact: Hermann Pretorius, IRR Head of Strategic Communications Tel: 079 875 4290 Email: hermann@irr.org.za

Media enquiries: Michael Morris Tel: 066 302 1968 Email: michael@irr.org.za

Sinalo Thuku, Tel: 073 932 8506 Email: sinalo@irr.org.za