Investors ‘put off by high SA costs’

[Sneeky]

03 August 2005

International telecommunications company AT&T could be frightened off from making further investments in SA due to the high cost of doing business here, especially those charged by telephone utility Telkom, Parliament’s portfolio committee on labour was told yesterday.
Vic van Vuuren, chief operating officer of Business Unity SA (Busa), told the committee that a delegation from AT&T had recently visited SA. He said they had revealed that while they used Telkom for 2% of their business in SA it represented a total of 25% of their business costs in SA.

He said the AT&T group said “if that was the cost of doing business in SA they were definitely not going to increase their investment here”.

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/economy.aspx?ID=BD4A76184

 

[Dastrix]

And there you have it, the bottom line for all business in SA.

 

[guest2013-1]

could we have coverage of this on the main site?

 

[MaD]

Government and Telkom are basically telling investors to piss off.

 

[Sneeky]

Maybe AT@T are just looney, you know, in the same way that Icasa is and anyone is that points a finger at Telkom. The World according to White and Vapi.
Then again maybe not

 

[rsd]

Grrr yet again, Telkom shafting SA

 

[Celemasiko]

And we need them desperately for millions of unemployed people...

 

[Silent_Bob]

Telkom are just destroying the future of the countries bussiness world, ending it because of high prices and scaring away other companies...

 

[Sneeky]

Any normal company that causes this type of hype in parliment would be taken to task then and there.

 

[Gooku]

Telecomunication costs and transportation costs are both too high in South Africa

Competitiveness as a country weakens,when those 2 major input costs of business reaches Exorbitant level.

unless problems are addressed swiftly ,SA will never achieve 6 % growth in our economy,the growth rate required to generate new jobs to meet the challenge of alleviating high unemployment rate in SA.

 

[mak2000]

Any normal company that causes this type of hype in parliment would be taken to task then and there.

Well, this isn't "any normal" company is it. This is Telkom and they own the communications space in SA. This makes me sick, how many people and how many organizations have to raise this issue of Telkom costs before the f**king govt will do something.

 

[bekdik]

Well, this isn't "any normal" company is it. This is Telkom and they own the communications space in SA.

And who owns Telkom. Here's a clue - Government have 40% shareholding.

 

[BTTB]

AFAIK, AT&T offered quite a few Billion in the early 90's for Telkom.
Of course the offer was rejected as the government had other ambitions.
But it would be interesting to see what might have been had AT&T taken over Telkom 10 or so years ago.