Competition Act under review
Pauline Dikuelo | Tuesday March 15, 2016 14:21
Seretse revealed this at a two-day International Competition Network (ICN) workshop recently. The workshop was hosted by the Competition Authority (CA) under the theme ‘How to make competition authorities more effective’. The annual workshop on agency effectiveness focused on strengthening institutional efficiency of competition agencies around the world.
The covered topics included; agency development strategy development and implementation, effective project delivery such as investigation procedures, agency ethics, and evaluation of procedures practices and impact of cases.
“My ministry is reviewing the Competition Act, I can assure that the government of Botswana is desirous of ensuring that there is equally sound corporate governance, transparency and accountability in the management and operations of the competition agencies,” he said.
Seretse said for this reason, the government recently signed a Shareholder Compact with the CA and Competition Commission to ensure that there are clear lines of engagement, responsibilities and expectations that are pragmatic and auditable.
In addition, he said the CA should add value to the country’s economic growth and development by handling cases of anti-competition and proactively influencing laws, policies and conduct that affect fair competition in the market place.
“We believe that effective implementation of competition policy would assist to open business opportunities and create wealth for our country and contribute to the growth of our country’s economy,” he said.
Last year the Authority completed around 28 mergers, which attracted expansion in the domestic enterprises with a capital injection of P791.6 million. The mergers have led to transfer of skills in production of wheat products, diamond mining and canvas and tent manufacturing.
The mergers have also resulted in an increase in citizen empowerment, as two citizens-owned companies acquired international owned companies.
The authority is also investigating 11 cases in which two of them relate to bid rigging, are at the High Court after they appealed a decision made by the adjudicating organ, the Competition Commission.
Delivering his keynote address, Non-Executive Director of the UK Competition and markets authority, Professor William Kovaic said despite the efforts of the Competition Authority of improving economic performance, he has established that globally, competition laws tend to promise too much.
“The laws tend to promise too much, mostly it is unattainable and this is where is becomes difficult for the Authority to achieve their mandates let alone on time,” he said.
The professor emphasised that for a successful and effective agency, it is important for each and every authority to set up their own expectations and goals, which will make it easy for them to set their own strategy.