InMedia-Namibia

NAMIBIA NATIONAL TRAINING WORKSHOP

31 July-02 August, 2007, Windhoek, Namibia

IN MEDIA

Minister inaugurates first ever competition policy training workshop in Namibia

Press Release, Windhoek, July 31, 2007

‘A sound consumer protection regime backed by an effective competition law shields consumers and the economy from the ill effects of anticompetitive practices, especially in the vulnerable and less matured developing country markets’, were the remarks of Honourable Immanuel Ngatjizeko, Namibian Minister of Trade and Industry who formally opened the first ever training workshop on competition policy and law implementation at the Safari Hotel being organised by the Namibian Economic Policy Research Unit (NEPRU) and Consumer Unity & Trust Society (CUTS International) of India.

Adding further the Minister observed that the Competition Act, 2003 (Act No.2 of 2003) of Namibia is designed with the object of ensuring sustained economic growth in the country, with a corresponding development of the local enterprises and the protection of consumers. He announced that good progress had been made by the government regarding the institutional and administrative procedures of operationalising the competition law.

Speaking during the same occasion, Ms. Tswelopele Moremi, Executive Secretary of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) endorsed the importance that the SACU Secretariat accords to evolving a healthy competition culture among the member states in the region. She acknowledged the efforts being made by CUTS International in the region, and NEPRU in Namibia in facilitating the process of spreading awareness and understanding on competition policy and law matters.

Informing the audience, she said that Articles 40 and 41 of the (2002) SACU Trade Agreement specifically adresses competition and the need for the member states to embrace competition regimes as a pre-requisite to SACU-wide cooperation mechanism. Currently, the Secretariat is engaged with an exercise to develop means to deal with unfair trade practices and evolve cooperation mechanisms on competition policy, competition law and regulations among the member states. She asserted that the workshop comes at an opportune moment when there is marked progress, in terms of putting in place appropriate legislation on competition both at the SACU level and among the member states.

Rijit Sengupta, representing CUTS International, provided a brief orientation to the participants to the purpose of the workshop, which he said was to make the process of competition evolution and implementation in the country inclusive, by making non-state actors and state actors equally familiar with competition issues, so that the government could derive the necessary support for implementing the competition act from the other stakeholders involved. This training workshop, he went on, was part of a regional project being undertaken by CUTS International with support from the Department for International Development (DFID), UK and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), Norway. The project entitled, “Capacity Building on Competition Policy in Select Countries of Eastern & Southern Africa” (referred to as the 7Up3 project) aims at identifying the bottlenecks to operationalising competition regimes in the seven project countries (Botswana, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia and Uganda) and finding ways to overcome such bottlenecks – one of which was ‘capacity constraints’ among various stakeholders (state and non-state) on competition policy and law issues. Precisely what this 3-day training workshop was designed to address.

Douglas Reissner, Commissioner of the Namibian Competition Commission welcomed the initiative and endorsed that it comes at a very opportune moment for the country, as it gears up to implementing the competition act. He was glad to note that the training workshop had attracted the attention of various stakeholders comprising government, legal fraternity, private and public sector firms, civil society organisations and the media.

International resource persons, who would facilitate the 3-day training workshop, include Ms. Vani Chetty (South Africa), Dr. S Chakravarthy (India) and Mr. Patrick Krauskopf (Switzerland). Issues that would be covered over the period of the workshop would be introduction to competition policy and law, introduction to competition analysis, competition restricting practices, abuse of dominance, horizontal and vertical restraints.

Some amount of time has been allocated on the second half of the third day to a fourth round of meeting of the ‘National Reference Group’ (NRG) on competition policy and law that has been established through this project. Edward Kamboua, the Director of Internal Trade, Ministry of Trade and Industry explained that this National Reference Group has grown in stature over the period as a platform to discuss impending issues on competition policy and law in the country and should be seen as evolving into a “National Think Tank” on Competition Policy’ in Namibia over the near future. The NRG would discuss ways of making competition issues more tangible for a wider national audience by identifying issues that link competition policy with other public policy issues in the country.

Progress Made in Competition Act to Be Promulgated

New Era, 06 August 2007

The Minister of Trade and Industry, Immanuel Ngatjizeko, said last week that government has made progress in its efforts to implement the Competition Act, and all that remained was some logistical and administrative arrangements before the Act could be promulgated. The minister briefed participants at a workshop on Competition Policy and Law organized by the Namibian Economic Policy Research Unit (NEPRU) and the Consumer Unit and Trust Society (CUTS).

“The Competitive policy and Competitive law in Namibia are governed by the Competition Act, 2003 (Act No.2 of 2003), which will be implemented in the next few months,” he said “Commissioners have been appointed, and a property has been leased to serve as the office of the Namibian Competition Commission. We are now working towards the appointment of a new chairperson.” Namibia’s economic competitiveness was ranked 88th out of 128 countries in the world, just behind Botswana which was ranked 83, according to the African Competitiveness Report jointly published by the African Development Bank (ADB), the World Bank and the World Economic Forum. The results were disappointing compared to some of the other 29 African countries that were examined against the global market. Countries such as Tunisia (29), South Africa (46), Mauritius (58), and Egypt (65) emerged among the best economic performers with regard to competitiveness.

“Competition is a good thing, and we should all embrace it as a very important aspect in the development and growth of our industries,” he urged. The purpose of the Act is to enhance the promotion of and to safeguard competition in the country in order to promote efficiency, adaptability and development of the country’s economy; and also to expand opportunities for participation by Namibians in the world markets while recognizing the role of foreign competition in the country; as well as to provide consumers with competitive prices and product choices, amongst others.

In addition, the Act would also make certain restrictive business practices illegal such as restrictive horizontal practices resulting from agreements between firms operating at the same level in the product chain, producing competing goods and services. Such restrictions, he said, were important as horizontal acquisitions were clearly the type of activities which contributed most directly to concentration of economic power and which were likely to lead to dominant position of market power, thereby reducing competition altogether.

“It is not only the consumer who will benefit from competition policy and law, but the entire economy, too, stands to gain enormously from protection against the destructive operations of cartels and abuse of dominant positions by monopolies.

“Namibia heavily relies on imports which are often subjected to distorted pricing by import cartels. Similarly, domestic firms – for example, import cartels – often penalize the consumer with higher-than-necessary prices and other forms of abuse of dominance.”

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SACU bloc lacks competition policies

Namibian Economist, 03 August 2007

SACU executive secretary Tswelopele Moremi said this week that South Africa is the only country within the union with a competition law and with long established competitive institutions. Moremi was speaking during a training workshop on competition policy and law in Windhoek that the country is currently coming up with a competition law.

“The remaining member states are currently active in the process of preparing their legislations and are at varying stages of development.

Botswana, for example, is at an advanced stage of drafting a competition law whereas Lesotho and Swaziland are at early stages,” said Moremi.

She said work commenced in December 2006 with the adoption of the Roadmap by the SACU Council on the proposed activities of developing a cooperation mechanism on competition policy.

Moremi said the workshop comes at a time when there is marked progress in terms of putting in place appropriate legislation for competition policy in each individual member states of SACU.

“I would also like to note the need for collaboration at the regional level, and specifically in the Southern and Eastern African region. We are all committed to the process on deepening Regional Integration in Africa. We therefore need to share information and build upon the work done by regional groupings and individual countries in COMESA, EAC, SADC and SACU on Competition Policy matters,” said Moremi