South African History Online

Welcoming address to workshop on anti-trust, monopolies and mergers policy

4 December 1992

Chairperson;
Ladies and Gentlemen;
Comrades and Friends.

I have the greatest pleasure in welcoming all of you to this important
workshop. I am greatly impressed by the outstanding panel of economists which
the Department of Economic Planning has been able to assemble here. In welcoming
all of you, I want to extend a very special greeting to the eminent panel of
international experts for the effort which has gone into the long hours of
travel in order to place your skills and experience at our disposal. We do also
wish to record our sincere appreciation to individuals from the private sector
and to academics who are not members of the ANC, for your presence and
participation. When we, as the ANC, adopted our policy guidelines at the end of
May this year, we declared that we are ready to govern. In saying this, we were
signalling our willingness to assume the mantle of responsibility for the
administration of a democratic South Africa. More importantly, we indicated that
we want to change the culture of policy-making from the clandestine style of the
past to an interactive and open style under democracy. At that milestone policy
conference, we adopted a set of guidelines, the product of extensive education
and debate within our ranks over a period of at least two years. We also
committed ourselves to a further process during which detail would be added to
the framework. This is the purpose of our gathering here today.

We are deeply concerned about the state of the South African economy. My
major concerns at present are about the effects of inflation, rising food prices
in particular, and unemployment on the lives of the majority of our people. I am
shocked that only 3% of school-leavers will be absorbed into the formal economy
at the beginning of 1993. I am concerned that the levels of investment are
declining as rapidly as they are. I am all too aware of how this rapidly eroding
economy will challenge a fledgling democracy. Hence we repeatedly appeal for a
swift transition and the establishment of an elected interim government of
national unity soonest.

The ANC spearheaded the adoption of the Freedom Charter in 1955 as a true
expression of the needs and aspirations of all South Africans. Included in the
Freedom Charter are thus economic clauses which emerged primarily as an
expression of the exclusion of the majority from the ownership and control.
Immediately after the adoption of the Freedom Charter, and even up to the
present, there has been extensive debate about the intention of the clause which
reads,

The people shall share in the country's wealth!

I was recently reminded that a year after the adoption of the Charter, I
wrote "for the first time in the history of this country the non-european
bourgeoisie will have the opportunity to own in their own name and right mills
and factories," as my interpretation of that particular clause. The dictum was
to shift over a period, thus I too later interpreted that clause to infer
nationalisation. Let us be reminded that the objective of the clause was to
address the feeling of exclusion of the majority from the economic mainstream.
This remains one of our major concerns. We remain of the view that the economy
is owned and controlled by a little white enclave and that this is entirely
unsustainable given the South African socio-political landscape.

We have repeatedly been informed by prospective foreign investors that the
South African investor environment is quite hostile because of the stranglehold
of the conglomerates on the economy. Our own examination confirms this.

The ANC is thus attempting to define an instrument which would both inject
competition into the economy and create new ownership opportunities, which will
allow us to address the legacy of apartheid. It was in this quest that we struck
upon anti-trust policy and thus included our commitment to the implementation
thereof into our policy guidelines. We do not see this as a panacea for
addressing all of the prevailing economic distortions, nor are we of the view
that the experience of other countries can be transposed onto the South African
situation. We are convinced that anti-trust policies are a useful instrument
that will need to be fashioned to suit the local conditions, and that it be
applied with a measure of flexibility because it will only be successful if
there is a commensurate cultural change in the minds of those who presently
control the economy.

In conclusion, I want to say that whilst this workshop has been convened by
the African National Congress, its product will impact on all of South Africa,
not just on the ANC. The range of participants gives credence to our commitment
to open and democratic policy formulation. I am advised that the debate will be
very sharp on some of the aspects under discussion, and I welcome this. I want
to wish you well in your deliberations and express my profound gratitude to all
of you participants for your preparations and your presence.

I thank you.