Cape Town - The Competition Commission is to probe price-fixing of school uniforms and kickbacks for schools.
It could impose heavy fines.
But suppliers have defended the way they do business – which includes some giving monetary donations to the schools they supply – after the commission launched a probe into exclusive agreements schools enter into with them.
The probe was launched after the commission received a complaint by a Cape Town parent, who alleged that one retailer had sold uniforms for 60 schools at exorbitant prices.
Commission spokesman Mava Scott said schools and suppliers could be penalised with hefty fines if they were found to be in contravention of the Competition Act.
Scott said part of the investigation would include looking at benefits schools may receive for entering into agreements with suppliers.
Marc Swiel, managing director at retailer School and Leisure, which supplies school uniforms for 70 schools in the province, said schools, together with their governing bodies, would approach stockists and decide which one to partner with.
“We welcome the competition. Another schoolwear retailer, House of Schoolwear, had, for example, opened a store near to ours in Wynberg a few years ago. It closed about three years later, but the schools allowed them to stock their uniforms with us,” Swiel said.
Joh Dorfling, principal at DF Malan High School in Bellville, said both School and Leisure and major schoolwear supplier De Jagers supplied uniforms to the school.
Dorfling said School and Leisure would often help the school by donating uniforms to pupils who could not afford to purchase them, or offered monetary cheques as gifts, although Dorfling could not remember how much the cheques were worth.
Swiel said it was not company policy to offer any remuneration in recognition of being granted the right to stock school uniforms.
Andries de Jager, chief executive of De Jagers, which stocks the uniforms of 120 schools in the Western and southern Cape, said his company had sponsored events and functions at schools on request.
“If a school has a golf day, we might sponsor it or hand out gift vouchers. This is not to say: ‘If you do business with us, then I will do this for you’, but because we like giving back’,” De Jager said.
Ludick Janse van Rensburg, deputy principal at Gene Louw Primary School in Durbanville, said the school had stocked uniforms on their premises for more than 10 years, but after it became too much of an administration burden and security risk, the school decided to partner with De Jagers.
“They gave us a good deal. We trust them to stock our uniforms,” he said.
The school was receiving a small percentage of the profit made, he said. - Cape Times