a tripartite report - Unctad

100 VOLUNTARY PEER REVIEW OF CLP: A TRIPARTITE REPORT ON THE UNITED REPUBLIC OF TANZANIA – ZAMBIA – ZIMBABWE
was noted that in the absence of information,
which some complainants and respondents,
and other relevant stakeholders, were
the Commission to ensure speedy resolution
of competition complaints. The law also did
not give the Commission powers to carry out
obtaining a warrant from the courts of law.
Limited Administrative Remedies: the
Commission did not have powers to impose
Zambia is slow and expensive. Furthermore
under the Act, offenders were liable upon
conviction of a breach of competition law,
did not deter would-be offenders.
Private Rights of Action: it was noted that
the Act did not contain any express right to
bring private civil actions for breach of Part
III prohibitions of the Act that are related to
anticompetitive practices. Under common law,
which is applicable in Zambia, third parties can
seek injunctive relief against breaches of the Act
and are thought to be able to claim damages
for losses sustained as a result of such breaches.
:
it was observed that there had been some
dissatisfaction from the public who were
claiming that the current decision-making
procedure by the Board of Commissioners did
not guarantee procedural fairness. That was
because parties to matters being considered
by the Board did not enjoy the ‘rights to
defence’, i.e., there was no requirement for
the parties to appear before the Board to
defend their position.
(iv) The Commission’s resources
Mandate: the Commission had a wide
mandate under the Act that allowed it to
address competition concerns in virtually all
sectors of the Zambian economy, yet it had to
cope with the problem of shortage of staff with
the necessary expertise of analysing issues in
every economic sector. Related to that was the
challenge of concurrent jurisdiction with other
sector regulators, which was not adequately
addressed in the Act.
Inability to Recruit and Retain Trained and
: the Commission was unable
to retain staff that had been trained at great
cost because of uncompetitive conditions of
service.
: lack of
Lack of Reference Materials: lack of a proper
library facility with requisite reference
competition, economic, consumer, law,
decided court cases, and other relevant
literature.
Low National Coverage: lack of logistical
capacity to monitor, control and prohibit
anticompetitive practices at national level.
(v) Lack of Government support for the
Commission
Government Support for Competition
Enforcement: it was observed that the
implementation of competition law in Zambia
had not received the necessary support from
government policymakers. In that regard,
it was observed that there had been great
reluctance by government to act upon the
advice of the Commission, and that the
Commission’s competition opinions and
recommendations to policymakers “are not
effectively observed due to discretionary
policy making by government institutions”.
That was because the government is not
bound by the decisions or recommendations
of the Commission, unlike the competition law
which binds government to the decisions of
the competition authority 118 .
(vi) A general lack of competition culture in
Zambia
Fear of Competition Policy and Law by
Manufacturers: it was observed that most of
the manufacturers did not share a common
and full understanding of the importance of
competition law and policy, probably because
there seemed to be deep-rooted fears
competition laws and policies are effectively