ECONOMIST DAWIE ROODT SAYS COMPETITION COMMISSION MUST BE CLOSED IN SOUTH AFRICA
- BEE NEWS
- Oct 14
- 3 min read
Hanno Labuschagne | 12 October 2025
Dawie Roodt believes the Competition Commission should close up shop because it does not understand how competition between businesses functions.
The Efficient Group’s chief economist believes that allowing private businesses to work together will ultimately boost competition.
The entity is responsible for regulating competition among South African businesses, including approving or disallowing major acquisitions and mergers.
The commission is one of three statutory bodies established under the Competition Act of 1998. The other two are the Competition Tribunal and Competition Appeal Court.
The Commission and Tribunal are administratively accountable to the Department of Trade, Industry, and Competition, whereas the Competition Appeal Court falls under the judiciary.
Roodt highlighted that it was the nature of the business to try to avoid competition. “The Competition Commission does not understand this basic piece of economics,” he said.
Roodt argued that the best way to encourage competition would be to remove laws that prevented businesses from starting up and working together.
“The only way that you can get a more competitive environment is to remove obstacles to doing business, and then the private sector will compete naturally,” Roodt said.
He explained that successful and profitable businesses, even those that collude, are good for the economy. “Let them work together if they want to, let them charge exorbitant prices for stuff,” he said.
“The more money they make, the more they will create an environment where more players want to participate in this money-making.”
Roodt said that those participating in the private sector did not need protection from each other; they needed protection from the state.
“It’s quite often very difficult to enter an industry, not because of the dominant player, but because of labour legislation and lack of local services, a dangerous environment, and so on,” he said.
“The job of the state is just to create an environment that is easy for people to enter all the industries, and the dominant players are mostly state-owned, like Eskom,” he said.
Energy expert Chris Yelland recently called the Competition Commission “sleepy” for failing to act against Eskom with regard to its attempts to block private trading licences.
“The Competition Commission should undertake a market enquiry into Eskom’s dominant and abusive behaviour to exercise concurrent jurisdiction with the National Energy Regulator of South Africa,” he said.
“Eskom must be held to the same standard as Telkom and South African Airways. The National Transmission Company of South Africa must become a truly neutral operator.”
Going beyond matters of competition
Roodt has also criticised the Competition Commission for getting involved in matters that have nothing to do with competition, including the advancement of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE).
In 2023, Sakeliga criticised the commission’s draft public interest proposal, which sought to expand BEE measures beyond companies doing business with the state.
“The draft guidelines confirm a practice that has emerged within the Commission to enforce government objectives such as BEE on companies under the veil of public interest considerations,” the organisation said.
“Competition law in South Africa is becoming less about competition and more about leveraging regulatory power to interfere in companies’ internal affairs and align them with government preferences.”
Sakeliga argued that the commission considered itself a “super-regulator” that may interfere in transactions above a certain amount on spurious “public interest” grounds, including BEE, local content, and job creation.
An analysis by the organisation found that 87% of the acquisition or merger rejections listed in the two years from March 2019 to March 2021 had transformation cited as reason or part of the reason for rejection.
Legal firm Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr has explained that the guidelines would deem any merger that otherwise had no effect on the economic status quo but did not contribute to increased black and worker ownership, contrary to the public interest.
“Although it is difficult to argue with the ideological sentiment, many may continue to question why the obligation to transform the economy should be laid at the door of those who dare to posit a merger, with its existing inherent risks and uncertainty,” said the firm’s competition law experts.
‘Disclaimer - The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the BEE CHAMBER’.