Ghana’s Parliament Calls For Competition Law

“Competition in the market place brings about innovation, quality, lowers the price of goods and services, and addresses unfair trading practices like price fixing, cartels and abuse of dominance in the market place. It is very important to ensure that industries operating in the country do so efficiently and innovatively since this does not only lead to the production of quality goods but also allow consumers to get value for money.” This was expressed by Hon. Nanja Sanja, the deputy Chairman for the Parliamentary Select Committee on Trade, Industry and Tourism.

Honourable Nanja Sanja made this comment during a sensitization and capacity building for members of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Trade, Industry and Tourism at the Parliament House.

Honourable Sanja added that Parliament is willing to collaborate with the executive to see to the passage of the National Competition Bill and tasked the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MOTI) to initiate the process of sponsoring the National Competition Bill.

Hon. Sanja lauded CUTS for championing the advocacy for a competition law and policy in Ghana and also for taking the necessary steps to ensure that both consumers and producers are well educated on the need for such the law. He expressed his profound gratitude on behalf of the Committee and the leadership of Ghana’s Parliament for sensitize the relevant stakeholders on the importance and benefits of a competition policy and law to Ghana.

Honourable Abudu Nelson was of the view that Ghana needs a competition law and policy to bring about innovation, and healthy competition amongst businesses in the country. He stressed that the law should ensure to protect consumers from the anti-competitive practices such as price-fixing, cartelization and monopoly.

Mr. Appiah Adomako, CUTS Centre Coordinator, in his presentation pointed out that in a market economy; competition is a process whereby firms fight against each other for securing consumers for their products. He explained that there are three components of Competition Reforms- enabling government policies, promoting competition, and the implementation of regulatory frameworks and effective enforcement of National Competition Law. He mentioned that there are nine principles of competition policy, which when observed in the institutionalizing of a competition regime would ensure that a nation’s economy is being driven at its optimal level.

He added that the Protection Against Unfair Competition Act, 2000 (Act 589) which was enacted with the aim to promote competition in key economic sectors in the country is however not comprehensive and hence unable to regulate properly the anti-competitive behaviors that are creating social lose to both consumers and producers and also inefficiencies in the Ghanaian market. This therefore reveals that Ghana must not only aim to pass a competition law but must ensure that the law passed is very comprehensive and adopted to suite both the national and regional business culture.

Hon. Gifty Twumasi Ampofo, a member of the Committee stressed the need for Ghana to balance between competition and the protection of local industries from big multinationals. She stressed the importance for CUTS to advocate thoroughly for the effective implementation of the competition law in Ghana to ensure that local industries are protected and their capacity developed by the government.

The capacity building and the sensitization meeting took place at the Parliament House and was well attended by the Hon. Members of Parliament of the Trade, Industry and Tourism Committee. The meeting took place under the aegis of the CREW Project with support from the DFID and GIZ.

The CREW Project is being implemented in four countries namely, Ghana, Zambia, India and the Philippines with the focal research sectors being the staple food and the bus transport sector. The CREW Project aims to develop an approach, which will help in assessing the benefits of competition reforms on consumers and producers in these two sectors.

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