CAPE TOWN - The Competition Commission says it will continue to monitor the pricing of school uniforms and urged schools to keep uniforms as generic as possible.
After investigations into anti-competitive behaviour in the school uniform supply chain, the Commission and the Department of Basic Education last year jointly released a circular guiding schools and stakeholders about best practice for procurement.
The Commission says that a survey would be rolled out over the next few weeks to assess the level of compliance.
“The principle governing these guidelines include:
• School uniform should be as generic as possible such that it is obtainable from as many suppliers possible;
• Where deemed necessary, exclusivity should only be limited to a few ’must’ items that the schools regard as necessary to obtain from pre- selected suppliers e.g. school badge;
• Where there are approved suppliers, schools should follow a competitive bidding process when appointing such suppliers;
• Schools should appoint more than one supplier in order to give parents more options; and
• The concluded agreements should be of limited duration so that schools can continuously check the market in order to obtain the best offering for parents.“
The Commission had, in 2014, launched a probe into price-fixing of school uniforms and kickbacks for schools.
The Commission said it’s: “now ready to prosecute and push for penalties against suppliers and schools that engage in anticompetitive conduct".
“The Commission calls on all parents, SGBs, community structures and government to be vigilant and report any form of contravention via email [email protected] or the Commission’s SMS/WhatsApp line 084 743 0000.
“Principals in particular must ensure that each parent or guardian is made aware of the choices they can exercise in in purchasing school uniform,” the Commission said.
Cape Times