The case is already before the South African Competition Tribunal, and any time soon, the tribunal will have to pass its verdict: either GovChat, a citizen engagement platform used by the South African government, is permanently removed from WhatsApp which it runs on; or Facebook, the owner of WhatsApp, rescind its policy against the South African platform.
“Founder and CEO of GovChat Eldrid Jordaan has asked the Tribunal to interdict and restrain Facebook from off-boarding them from the WhatsApp platform pending the outcome of a complaint which they submitted to the Competition Commission, relating to alleged prohibited practices by Facebook, or for a period of six months, whichever occurs first,” Tribunal spokesperson Gillian de Gouveia said.
“Facebook wants to kick GovChat off WhatsApp to offer similar services to the government”
Trouble started when Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, blocked GovChat from accessing the WhatsApp platform over GovChat’s alleged violation of the contractual terms of use.
GovChat, a civic engagement platform, offers various government-sanctioned communications services, including information relating to COVID-19 and connecting with government representatives.
“As the official citizen engagement platform for the South African Government, GovChat acts as a centralised hub bringing all government and civic services together with cutting-edge conversational AI, intuitive design, and ease of access,” the GovChat website states.
Now GovChat said, to the competition tribunal, that Facebook was up to a game by blocking it. It accused the global giant of fronting Praekelt Consulting Services, which builds competing services to GovChat. It further said the plan was to off-board GovChat from the WhatsApp Business API so that Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, would deal directly with the government to the exclusion of GovChat.
However, while Facebook argued before the tribunal that the case pertains to its rights to enforce the contractual terms that govern the use of its paid business messaging platform, the WhatsApp business application programming interface, which connects third parties to the platform, GovChat argued that it had made numerous failed attempts to reach a commercial solution for all stakeholders, with Facebook, to prevent the termination of GovChat’s access to the WhatsApp platform,
Read also:How Technology is Recreating the Offline Retail Experience Online
GovChat then went ahead to maintain that Praekelt did what Facebook had accused it of doing and stated that Facebook did not appear to take issue with how Praekelt used the WhatsApp Business API.
GovChat therefore insisted that Facebook was engaged in discriminatory practices by looking to kick it off of Facebook, but allowing Praekelt to continue to operate along with Aviro Health, Internet Filing, and Telkom Pay.
“We do not believe there is a distinction to be made between the services offered by GovChat, Aviro Health, and Internet Filing,” GovChat noted.
“After the Covid-19 outbreak GovChat diverted to assisting the government with Covid-19 education and awareness, symptom tracking, the provision of test results and enabling citizens to apply for urgent social relief grants/distress grants,” it further added.
Read also: Why More South African Startups Have Raised Funds This Year
According to GovChat, it operates within WhatsApp’s terms of use, has never intentionally misrepresented its position nor acted in good faith at all times.
Jordaan argued that Facebook’s removal of GovChat from WhatsApp’s API would: “End GovChat’s ability to render services to the government and citizens at the height of the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in South Africa and force the applicants out of business.”
Last year, GovChat, based in Pretoria, announced it had secured an investment facility from JSE-listed firm Capital Appreciation, which would allow the startup to tap up to R20-million in funding from the listed company. GovChat was founded in 2016 and launched in 2018 by CEO Eldrid Jordaan. As at 2019, the startup had at least 500,000 South Africans users of its platform.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer