Greetings communist cadres, Thank you cde Mluleki, I fully concur that the Competition Tribunal committed gross irregularities in arriving at its decisions. There is a serious error of judgement on the conditions sanctioned by the Tribunal as they do not only fail to satisfy public interest but create a fertile ground for the merged entity to erode the ability of local players to compete and create job opportunities. The condition that says "the merged entity must ensure that there are no retrenchments, based on the merged entity’s operational requirements in South Africa, resulting from the merger, for a period of two years from the effective date of transaction", is very elusive and self-defeating. Walwart would simply adopt a practice of labour broking and casualisation to pay a lip service to a condition of ensuring that "there are no retrenchments". The Tribunal further allowed the US retailer to overstate the commercial benefits of the merger at the risk of greater losses in our economy, resulting in more imports, less procurement from local suppliers and further job losses as a direct consequence. It also failed to secure concrete commitments from the US retailer to leverage the risk in terms of food security and local manufacturing and production with a view to stimulate the creation of sufficient, decent and sustainable jobs in the best interests of the country. In the end, SA may see a further pickup in imports to worsen our trade deficit, and thus put government in a bad light for being complacent and dithering on making necessary intervention to mitigate the risk akin to the merger. The reality is that mergers with less desirable foreign investment impact in the economy create a legitimate expectation on the authorities to conduct a rigorous checks and balances in the context of the economic situation in the country. At the end of the day, the crisis of global capitalism is far from over and tri-ministerial (Economic Development, Trade and Industry and Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries) was duty bound to intervene and safe-guard our country from far-reaching effects in the economy as a result of the Walmart/Massmart merger. Remain, Morgan Phaahla
"Sometimes, if you wear suits for too long, it changes your ideology." - Joe Slovo --- On Wed, 8/3/11, Mluleki Mntungwa <[email protected]> wrote: From: Mluleki Mntungwa <[email protected]> Subject: [COSATU Daily News] SACCAWU/ Government/ Walmart go to court To: [email protected] Date: Wednesday, August 3, 2011, 10:43 AM The Competition Appeal Court set date for Walmart merger. Anti Walmart Campaign goes to Africa. I received a letter from a worker who used to work for Score Supermarket (Massmart subsidiary). He is now languishing at home as a result of Massmart’s retrenchment drive in preparation for the merger. It would be nice to put a human face to this whole thing. Just a thought. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "COSATU Daily News" group. For links, pages and file downloads visit http://groups-beta.google.com/group/COSATU-Daily-News To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] Visit the COSATU web site at http://www.cosatu.org.za/homep.htm -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] .
