CCA and BNPC Sign MoU to Enhance Cooperation

The Competition and Consumer Authority (CCA) and the Botswana National Productivity Centre today (10th May 2022) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to enhance cooperation. The MoU was signed by the CCA’s Director Legal Services Mr. Kesego Modongo, and the BNPC’s Acting General Manager Mr. Teedzani Majaule.

In his remarks, Mr Modongo said the integration of markets has put pressure to put in place robust research tools to unearth and address obstacles and barriers that impede effective competition and competitiveness of economic sectors; in the realisation that increased productivity and economic growth can only be realised by competitive markets. 

He said the 2016 World Bank Report revealed that Botswana’s sectors, particularly the manufacturing sectors, are characterised by concentrated structures as shown by the prevalence of monopolistic, duopolistic and oligopolistic structures.  Modongo said such structures are a cause for concern because they are prone to high prices, lack of innovation and little growth.

“As strategic partners in enhancing productivity, it should be in our interest to establish factors that influence such structures, with a view to advocating and adopting appropriate measures to address such, he said.

For his part, Mr. Majaule said the objective of the MoU is mainly to leverage on each other’s complementarities. These include sharing of information of research findings that have a bearing on productivity and competitiveness, joint policy briefs and advocacy programmes pertaining to constraints on competition, regional and international competitiveness.

“As the institution coordinating and analysing Botswana’s competitiveness through the World Economic Forum (WEF) and Institute for Management Development (IMD), it is imperative that CCA collaborate with BNPC to improve the productivity and competitiveness ratings of Botswana in relation to the level of domestic competition, Majaule said.