Special Hearings — Business Hearings — 1997-11-13

MOOSA MOOSA: Mr Chairman, firstly just to assure you that I shall confine my delivery to 15 minutes.  I'm mindful of the time and the problem.
 Secondly, I will speaking to my paper, but through my paper I have curtailed some of the paragraphs, so I can be brief.  I also want to settle that my paper is co-ed in three sections.
 The one section does give an example of my own story which exemplifies the kind of problem I believe that has to be highlighted and I will commence on that bases.
 My submission to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission are based on an account of a life's experiences which epitomise in microcosm, the ...(indistinct) circumstances which were encountered by those who found themselves on the ....(indistinct) side of the Apartheid system in the business environment.
 In reflecting on those experiences it is perhaps not inappropriate for me to mention that the only time I have been to court in my life, was when as a young man I had to appear with my late mother and my brothers, in the dark, to confess to the crime of living in our home in which I was born and lived until eventually we were forcibly thrown out by the agents of the Apartheid order.
 My story in the business arena is unique in that it was the first time that a group from the disadvantaged the sector, namely Avalon Cinemas, took issue with a monopolistic company, Ster Kinekor, which was a beneficiary of the Apartheid system.
 The issue was addressed to the competition board, which after full investigation found that Ster Kinekor was guilty of restrictive practises and an abuse of its dominant position.
 I want to give evidence of what happened to me in this particular instance, briefly, because I believe that what happened to me has happened to others of the previously disadvantaged community in different ways.
 Section one - background:  Avalon Cinemas was established some nearly 60 years ago and is one of the oldest cinema groups within the country.  The shares owned by the Avalon Cinemas have since its inception been held by members of my family who are members of the Indian group.
 At one time at its peak Avalon Cinemas had many screens operating through out the country.  From Durban to Johannesburg to Cape Town, Kimberley, Paarl, Worcester, East London and Port Elizabeth, which is believed, represented in excess of ten percent of the exhibition houses and market share at the time.
 This would today be represented by at least 60 - 70 screens in the course of normal business development over the years in a fair and equal opportunity business environment.
 As a result of the operation of the group areas legislation in the Apartheid era, Avalon Cinemas had to close down most of its cinemas.  Ultimately the remaining two were located within what was locally known as the Grey Stick Complex of Durban, an Indian group area of the Apartheid era.
 A five cinema complex in Chatsworth, and Indian group area under Apartheid legislation, which is a suburb inhabited substantially by members of the Indian group, was established during that era in a major shopping centre which was built there.
 The developer was a company within the same land group.  An application by Avalon Cinemas to be the operator in respect of those five cinemas, was rejected after protracted negotiations.  Although it was well qualified to undertake the business and was a member of the Indian group which qualified it automatically for the right to establish a business in an Indian group area in terms of the racist laws of that time.
 In stead the cinemas in Chatsworth were given to Ster Kinekor.  Then a SANLAM, Old Mutual subsidiary which was a member of the White group and thus disqualified in terms of the Apartheid legislation from occupying premises in an Indian group area.
 In other words;  although Avalon Cinemas was not entitled to retain its own cinemas in what became White areas, a White controlled company allocated to itself the right to take cinemas in an Indian area.
 The group area system was accordingly being applied not only to disadvantage Avalon Cinemas in White areas, but even in areas which are set aside for Indian ownership and occupation.  This was duplicity at its worst.
 Thus the Ster Kinekor group was able during the Apartheid era to establish itself as a major exhibitor of films in South Africa;  both in White and also (indistinct) areas and also to obtain valuable cinema complex sites in group areas designated for people of colour, like Chatsworth and to which it was not in terms of the racial laws enforced, entitled.
 In submissions to the competition board in 1994, the Chatsworth issues - regarding the Chatsworth issue, Ster Kinekor had the following and I quote:
"Ster Kinekor has never been asked to, has never applied for and never obtained ...(tape ends)