Cosy business relationships born out of old boys' clubs and a closed apartheid-era economy have left a mark on South Africa's business DNA. The resulting defects are a culture in which cartels and other forms of collusive behaviour are rife, and an economy in which high ownership concentration is entrenched. Small market players learn from who they consider to be the best and are, in some cases, coerced into collusion by bullying big brothers. "It's very difficult to pin down a culture, but my own observations on this are that under the closed economy during apartheid - this was under sanctions - [cartels] were an existential issue," said competition commissioner Tembinkosi Bonakele. "People were not concerned about competition, they were concerned about the sustainability of the apartheid economy." Four dominant bakers State intervention, through the provision of equipment, was also the reason there are four millers in South Africa supplying the four dominant bakers producing bread...
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