Special Hearings — Business Hearings — 1997-11-13

RUSSELL ALLY: Well, just to further develop this, because these are charges which you obviously can respond to, but not only did Anglo - is the charge that Anglo actually played that role in helping to restore confidence during the period in which there was a flight, but that later Anglo and the words that some people actually used - they practically gave away general mining and finance corporation which later became GEMCOR to Federale Mynbou, which was the mining subsidiary of Sanlam;  in that cementing links between English and Afrikaners capital.
 Now if this was the case that there was this opposition to Afrikaner Nationalism, to Apartheid, why then would Anglo have been so ready to enter into such a relationship, which was very important in strengthening Afrikaner capitalism which was also obviously important in the political strengthening of Apartheid?

<UNKNOWN>: Well, I was pretty junior but just senior enough to have done some of the arithmetic at the time of that deal.  I can assure you that Anglo American didn't give anything away.  We sold an interest in our shares in general mining (indistinct) you correctly said, to Federal Mynbou, but I can assure you that we sold it at a firm market price.
 Now, Nikki may be able to - being Harry Oppenheimer's son, to give a - and I hope he will comment if I get this wrong, but my understanding was that Mr Oppenheimer did this, because, as has already been touched on, the Nationalist Government was anti-business.  We though that their whole policy was - as I've already said - was morally wrong and economically disastrous.
 I think what was sought then was, if you brought people who had contact with the Government, you would be in a better position to change the Government's views and that is indeed how it helped work out, was Afrikaner interest becoming involved in the Mining Industry.  
 They saw the problems of the Mining Industry.  One was then able to make present representations to the Government for changes in order for the economy to grow.  I must be quite open with you.  We have through out this period been in favour of the economy grey, has Mr Godsell said earlier.  Had it grown from 1960 to 1990 at the Brazilian proportions we would perhaps have had an economy twice the size.  We would - the budget would be stronger.  We'd be able to do more in the social welfare and so forth.
 We believe that that was a constructive step and helped in the long term bases bring about the end of this very narrow minded Nationalist Party Apartheid Government's way of approaching life.
 Now, can I just make sure.  Nikki may have heard from his father a fuller or different version.

MR NIKKI OPPENHEIMER: I regret that you may have young enough to do some of the out-figuring.  I was too young to be able to even do that.

RUSSELL ALLY: I wasn't allowed to do anything, so I'm not going to comment on that.

MR NIKKI OPPENHEIMER: Then you and I were in the same boat.

RUSSELL ALLY: Yesterday we had a submission from the Black Management Forum, knowing that Anglo is familiar with, because there are ties and links.
 One of the accusations that the Black Management Forum made, a very very strong accusation, was that it was a policy, particularly of liberal capitalism and one would include Anglo into that (indistinct);  that in order to (indistinct) the demand for fundamental change there needed to be created a Black middle class, a buffer between the masses on the one hand and those who were in power on the other hand and would dampen the aspirations, who would work within the system and therefore would forestall real serious change.
 That the Urban Foundation which you're proud of the record of the Urban Foundation, that part of the charges is that Urban Foundation was precisely such an organisation that it was created, not so much because there was a commitment for fundamental change, but because there was the need to co-opt, to create a middle class to forestall and prevent fundamental change taking place.
 Now, would that be a fair charge, a reasonable charge to make, or were there other issues at stake?

<UNKNOWN>: I see it quite differently.  We have always believed in evolutionary change, rather than revolutionary change.  I think we felt and I don't know, some people here will say that some of us have had too much of an English education.
 By that I mean some of it in England;  that some of us have studied the change in England, through Victorian England, have society change from being rather like the South African society was, in the - shall we say the middle of this decade.  It wasn't all that different in England in the middle of the '80's if one reads Dickens' books and so forth.
 We've always believed bringing more and more people into the economy would facilitate change.  More and more people participating in economic - having economic opportunity, that you would get change along those lines.
 My understanding and I did play - I think was a vice chairman of the Urban Foundation for some of its career, our group was intimately involved in this and we were as I think is known, major contributors to it.
 So we stand fully behind what it did.  We actually think is was one of the success stories in bringing about change in this country.  We believe Bobby recited these and I won't go into the details.  I understand you've had a full submission from Ann Bernstein.  I did read through her submission last night.
 We believe this ...(indistinct) change played a major part in getting the Nationalist Party Government to see that things like urbanisation were, as Bobby referred to, were constructive and would - that this country could move to new bases.  We believe this is what they contributed to.

RUSSELL ALLY: Earlier today, I don't know, Bobby may have been present, the - there was a submission on behalf of Avalon Cinemas and Mr Moosa.  One of the things that he said was that South Africa has been a paradise for monopolies and gathered statistics to show the concentration of wealth and the ...(tape ends)

RUSSELL ALLY: ... corporations.  He said that one of the things that the Commission needs to look at if we were going to take seriously this question of reconciliation as the other parties, is redistribution and a fairer distribution of the resources.
 That one should be looking at anti-trust laws, the monopolisation of the economy in this country was not a good thing and a healthy thing.
 Do you want to have say in anything about that?

MR GODSELL: I think there are two separate issues.  The first is that any modern and vigorous economy should have effective anti-competition measure in place.
 Price fixing, erecting entry barriers that make it impossible for any new comer to enter an industry or industry sector, are clearly bad for the economy, their clearly unfair and they're bad for the society.
 There is a debate that is continuing with Government, a debate lead by Minister Alec Erwin about looking, re-looking at our competition policy and seeing if its vigorous and fair and effective.  Certainly, ours is an organisation that entirely supports that.  So, that's the one issue.
 The other issue is the issue of size and you know this a feature of the CG economy.  If you look at a number of different sector like building and construction or like mining or like auto mobile manufacturer, you might see a member of the Anglo group as being a large company in that sector.
 The moment you start to look world wide, there's a very different picture indeed and really the most effective way to introduce competition into this economy is to lower tariff barriers and we've absolutely seen it, precisely in auto mobiles and it's to take away exchange control, because then actually we will be part of a global economy which in fact we are and then the effectiveness of the firm will be entirely on its ability to compete on global conditions.