New competition act excites traders
The National Working Group on Trade and Policy says it is encouraging that the Competition and Fair Trading Act has been revised, a development that they say will help improve competitiveness of industry.
In a written response following the coming into force of the Competition and Fair Trading Act of 2024 on Monday, the group’s chairperson Frederick Changaya said merger and acquisitions have happened in Malawi under questionable circumstances and that the previous Act focused on supplier-bargaining power.
He said: “Specifically, it is encouraging to see the strengthening of the bite force of the commission. We could tell competitiveness of industry has been infringed upon but the commission had no teeth, hopefully now they will.
“Similarly, the previous Act focused on supplier bargaining power. Now they have roped in buyer bargaining power.”
Changaya observed that the market has dominant buyers, including government departments and agencies, which are killing small businesses through delayed payments, a situation he said had been rectified in the new Act.
“Government should also update the many other trade-related Acts that are 20 years old as many things have changed,” he said.
For the past two decades, Malawi has been operating under the Competition and Fair Trading Act of 1998, a development which created gaps that affected the commission’s ability to enforce competition and consumer welfare issues.
There were a number of reasons CFTC wanted the Act reviewed, including that the law was outdated and was not in tandem with international best practices in the enforcement of competition law.
In a statement, CFTC executive director Lloyds Vincent Nkhoma said several changes have been made to the CFTA of 2024, signalling an end to some of the challenges the institution was facing with regard to the enforcement of the old Act.
CFTC has since called on business enterprises and consumers to take consideration of the provisions that have been brought into the CFTA of 2024.
“Furthermore, the CFTC would like to advise the business enterprises to adopt voluntary compliance with competition and fair trading laws at all times, so as not to be found in breach of the law,” says Nkhoma.
