Commission considers De Lille's complaint

Johannesburg, 27 Jul 2009

The Competition Commission is considering Independent Democrats party leader Patricia de Lille's complaint against the cellular operators, to determine if there is any merit in her grievance.

De Lille laid a complaint with the Competition Commission over the high cost of mobile phone calls, and to investigate if the dominant players are acting anti-competitively or are guilty of prohibited practices.

“We have been working on this issue for over a year now and I originally wanted to lay the complaint in April, but, unfortunately, the general elections and other issues took priority then,” she said.

In her complaint, De Lille asserts SA has some of the highest mobile telephone costs in the world, and she believes there are sufficient “alarming markers to warrant an urgent investigation by the Competition Commission...”

Commissioner Shan Ramburuth says the complaint will be treated the same as any other matter that comes to the authority's attention. He verified that De Lille had filed a “broad, non-specific complaint”.

Once complaints are lodged with the commission, they go through a screening process, he says. This is done to determine whether there is any validity in the case, or whether it can be attached to any of the other investigations that are under way. “We have other cases in the sector,” says Ramburuth.

He says, while the complaint refers to the mobile industry in general, aspects of the grievance deal with the high cost of interconnect fees within the mobile industry.

Taking steps

De Lille also plans to propose a private members Bill in Parliament to resolve the interconnection issue that she claims has led to the high cost of mobile phone calls.

A private members Bill is a draft law proposed by a member of Parliament who is not part of the governing party. Apart from being her party's leader, De Lille is also a member of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications, the body that has legislative oversight of the Department of Communications and the sector.

She also asserts that interconnection rates increased by 500% over 12 years until 2007, and that they had surged by 512% in the period from 1998 to 2001.