Vigorous approaches to business competition needed

LERATO MALEKE
Correspondent | Monday March 18, 2013 00:00

Speaking during the second national competition conference held at Gaborone International Conference Centre (GICC) last week, Kaira who focused on competition culture, reminded the participants that competition in the economic context is well contextualised and that there is a policy drive and legal protection against its abuse.  He revealed that the Global Competitiveness Report for 2012/2013 has highlighted a number of shortcomings that affect competitiveness, 'of which competition is a prominent factor', he said.

He however pointed out that some of the issues in the survey are facts as evidenced from the ground 'while others are perceptions'. He further advised that perceptions of competition - whether there is fair or unfair competition vary across a spectrum of people.

'Having a competition policy and legal framework informs the investor about whether a country has systems in place to deal with anti-competitive trade practices, barriers to business entry, growth and development,' he explained.

He noted that where barriers are high, due to for example, small size of the market; closed contractual arrangements in the production and marketing chain; and various licensing processes, competitiveness is inherently negatively affected.

Among other things he stated that developing a culture of fair competition in an economy is not an easy task, 'neither is it a task for one institution' and that culture is about society. He explained that for any culture to take root in society, it must have a code and or expected behaviour that is generally accepted by a significant number of society's members.

'This becomes a habit, a way of doing things and one way of introducing a habit is by having a policy, which may be followed by a law, regulations and appropriate enforcement mechanisms to ensure that a particular behaviour is actualised,' he said.

With regard to measures on how to create a sustainable culture within a society, Kaira outlined the fact that there is a need to first and foremost begin with the source, that is to re-orient all policy makers and drivers that competition is one of the foremost considerations under the global competitiveness index and 'thus has to be nurtured and promulgated within the public and civil service system as part and parcel of the competitiveness basket'.

He disclosed that to facilitate this process, the Authority has embarked on holding meetings with all ministries to share on how competition policy is an important ingredient in the national economic development process.