MAURITIUS NATIONAL TRAINING WORKSHOP

08-10 August, 2007, Mauritius

IN MEDIA

Stakeholders urge for a consultative process for effective competition enforcement

Press Release, Mauritius, August 10, 2007

Stakeholders urge for a consultative process for effective competition enforcement

Press Release, Mauritius, August 10, 2007

Mauritius is among those African countries, which do not have a competition policy or law in place. The economic reforms in the country over a decade demands effective and fairly regulated market to protect rights of consumers and small enterprises.

Very few countries in the eastern and southern African region have competition policies or law, although many others are in a process of adopting one. Some of the notable countries, which have a competition legislature in some way or other, include, Ethiopia, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Kenya.

Government of Mauritius is also drafting a Competition Bill. In an effort to facilitate the exchange of information and to enhance stakeholders’ understanding on competition issues, Consumer Unity and Trust Society (CUTS International), India in partnership with Institute for Consumer Protection (ICP), Mauritius organised a three-day training workshop on Competition Policy and Law in Port Louis on 8-10 August 2007. This workshop was the part of a series of national training workshops being organized by CUTS International under the project, Capacity Building on Competition Policy in Select Countries of Eastern and Southern Africa, codenamed 7Up3 Project in seven project countries, i.e. Botswana, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia and Uganda.

The workshop was formally opened by Mr Sayed Hossen, a Member of Parliament (MP) Mauritius National Assembly. He indicated that government would soon adopt the Bill and it has been discussed for a long time. He also urged stakeholders to provide valuable inputs to the draft once it is made public. Mr. Mosadeq Sahebdin of ICP speaking on behalf of stakeholders urged government to include stakeholders from the beginning of the process, not only when the draft bill is completed; also experience shows that time allocated to comments on draft bill was inadequate.

Mr. Thurasoni Kaira, Director, Mergers and Acquisitions, Zambia Competition Commission (ZCC) and one of the eminent resource persons at workshop, advised Mauritius government and the civil society to learn from the experiences of countries like Zambia, South Africa and India. He shared an instance of Zambia that adopted a competition policy, which was observed to be quite complicated while dealing with market players and consumer’s welfare at the same time.

Mr. Manas Kumar Chaudhuri, Advocate, J Sagar Associates, India another scholar on competition said that developing countries face a number of challenges in designing and implementing a sound competition legislation. Most of the countries do not have opportunities to discuss competition related issues and understand the formulation of relevant policy and law, that’s why in most cases the legislations are first implemented and then discussed.

The third resource person in the workshop, Ms. Kasturi Moodaliyar, Senior Lecturer on Competition Law at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa expressed the need for an efficient judiciary, with the proper understanding on competition issues that would enhance the effectiveness of competition enforcement.