CFTC rolls out business clinics

The Competition and Fair Trading Commission (CFTC) has noted that lack of knowledge on fair and unfair business practices was putting the rights of consumers at risk in the country.

The organisation’s executive director Charlotte Malonda made the remarks in Blantyre at the opening of a countrywide business clinic initiative aimed at defining what constitutes fair and unfair business practices in Malawi.

Malonda told Malawi News Agency (Mana) on Monday that CFTC will conduct business clinics in the three major cities of Lilongwe, Blantyre and Mzuzu starting February 23 2015.

“Malawians continue to be subjected to unfair trade practices, with most businesspeople refusing to reduce prices of their goods and services in light of an improved economic performance. So, the clinics will seek to define what constitutes unfair trading, supply of defective and counterfeit products and misleading advertising,” she said.

“This will be an opportunity for participants to the business clinics to ask any questions they may have pertaining to the work of the CFTC generally and specifically relating to competition and consumer issues affecting the operations of their sector,” added Malonda.

She said CFTC will also take the participants through the process of filing an application, information required, how the assessment is undertaken, engaging the commission in a negotiated settlement and how to take a company through a compliance programme.

“Some of the topics to be covered during the business clinics include merger control, notice of investigations and consumer protection,” she said.

During the clinics, CFTC will meet people from the telecommunications, transport, financial, construction and tobacco industries, among others.

CFTC is an autonomous government agency with a mandate to regulate, monitor, control and prevent acts or behaviours which would adversely affect competition and fair trading in Malawi.