Ann Crotty and Shanti Aboobaker
Joseph Stiglitz, a former chief economist of the World Bank and Nobel laureate, has been appointed by the Department of Economic Development as a member of the panel of experts to conduct a supply chain study of the Walmart-Massmart merger.
The study is being conducted in terms of the order handed down by the Competition Appeal Court (CAC) last month.
The court ruled that the merged entity must commission a study to determine the “most appropriate means, together with the mechanism, by which local South African suppliers may be empowered to respond to the challenges posed by the merger and thus benefit thereby”.
The CAC ordered that the study be conducted by three experts, one to be appointed by the SA Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Union (Saccawu), another by the merging parties and a third by the three government ministers who lodged a review of the Competition Tribunal’s ruling with the CAC. The three departments are the Department of Economic Development, the Department of Trade and Industry and the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.
Mike Morris, one of UCT’s top political economists and a former trade union official, has been appointed by Walmart as a member of the panel. The CAC’s ruling made a number of references to Morris’s work in the field of supply chain management. Morris has written extensively on the subject.
Saccawu told Business Report yesterday that it was finalising its appointment of James Hodge, an economist with Genesis. Hodge made a significant and favourable impact on the Competition Tribunal’s proceedings when he led the investigation on behalf of the three government departments.
In terms of the CAC’s ruling, the cost of the study has to be borne by Walmart-Massmart and must be completed by June 9.
Commenting on Stiglitz’s appointment, the ministers said they believed he would “add depth and global know-how to the work of the panel and can assist the parties to identify an appropriate and constructive remedy to the potential public interest effects identified by the Competition Appeal Court rising from the merger”. Stiglitz is the author of a number of books including, Globalisation and its Discontents.