Botswana Shares its Experiences with the Global Competition Community

Delegates from the global competition community continued discussions on 11th May 2017 in Porto, Portugal on day two of the International Competition Network (ICN) annual conference. 

 

Topics tackled included advocacy strategies to preserve open and competititve markets, strategic thinking in communicating for deterrance, bid-rigging and corruption and  public interest considerations in merger review.

Bid-rigging and corruption both distort the aim of procurement processes and go against the basic tenets of competition law principles. Delegates shared experiences on detecting and tackling the red flags in public procurement.

The Manager for Legal and Enforcement Ms. Tapiwa Masie gave an overview of the strategies that Botswana has employed to tackle bid-rigging in public procurement which include the training of procurement officers in government and parastatals on bid-rigging, and the joint efforts by the Competition Authority, the public procurement agency, PPADB and the anti-corruption agency DCEC, in combatting corruption and the rigging of bids.

The Director of Mergers and Monopolies Ms. Magdeline Gabaraane briefed conference participants on the public interest aspects that Botswana's competition agency considers in its merger review process. These include employment creation, export promotion, SMMEs development and citizen economic empowerment. #ICNPorto