Botswana and South African Competition Agencies Enhance Cooperation

The Competition Authority (CA) on 13^th March 2015 hosted staff from the Competition Commission of South Africa, (CompCom). Through such visits, the two competition agencies aim to build rapport amongst staff and enhance cooperation in areas such as information sharing.

CA and Compcom staff held a workshop at the CA offices in which they shared information on various competition issues including post-merger impact assessment, cartel investigations, evidence-gathering techniques, as well as sharing experiences on major cases they have handled.

Welcoming the visitors, the CEO of the Competition Authority Mr. Thula Kaira said as the most developed competition agency in the region, which has won an award as the best in Africa, the Competition Commission of South Africa is looked upon to engage other competition bodies and share expertise in various ways such as benchmarking attachments.

In his remarks, the Head of the Cartels Division Mr. Makgale Mohlala concurred that cooperation of competition agencies is essential as their investigations can spill across borders. He said they have investigated some cartels in South Africa which might have migrated to Botswana, and if the two countries shared information it would be easier to catch the crooks, “the real thing we need to do is to share information and operationalise cooperation on investigations such as cartels, mergers and abuse of dominance” Mohlala said.

The visit of the CompCom staff to Gaborone followed a similar relationship-building visit to Pretoria by the CA staff in April 2014.