Botswana: Competition Policy Crucial for SADC-Ps
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Mmegi/The Reporter (Gaborone)
27 August 2008
Posted to the web 28 August 2008
For the SADC Trade Protocol to yield the desired results competition policies must be effectively implemented by the 14-member states, a senior Botswana government official, has said.
Speaking yesterday at the SADC Regional Conference on Competition Policy and Law, Permanent Secretary (PS) at Ministry of Trade, Banny Molosiwa said that anti-competitive behaviour will nullify markets.
"The liberalisation of markets in the region does not only open up opportunities, but also brings along some challenges in terms of ensuring fair competition in such liberalised markets," she said. At a recent summit in South Africa, 11 members of SADC signed an agreement for a Free Trade Area that paves way for the removal of tariffs and non-tariff barriers.
Molosiwa fears that if competition policies are not properly implemented, markets will be impaired by the anti-competitive behaviour of private monopololies, oligopolies or mergers which may pool their efforts together to take advantage of the wider market.
SADC is home to 250 million people with opportunities expected to open up even for Botswana companies like the Lobatse-based Can Manufacturers, which recently unveiled its P126 million plant.
Already the company exports to some SADC countries like Zimbabwe, Zambia and South Africa. It seeks to expand to Namibia and Mauritius.It is expected that integration of the markets will stiffen competition. Businesses are now expected to operate efficiently in order to achieve economies of scale and to explore new opportunities.
"The need for the national competition authorities to cooperate in the enforcement of competition law to deal effectively with cross-border competition issues cannot be overemphasised," Molosiwa said.
The twoday regional conference, which ends today, is aimed at building capacity for the development and implementation of competition and consumer policy and law for SADC countries.
Botswana is currently working on the establishment of a competition authority. Molosiwa is concerned that although other member states are at different stages of development and implementation of their competition and consumer policies, they are still faced with problems of implementation capacity.
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"The main challenge arises from the fact that member states are at different levels of economic development," she said.She stated that the varying competition policy objectives are likely to hamper efforts to the creation of a fair competition regime in the region.
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