a tripartite report - Unctad

40 VOLUNTARY PEER REVIEW OF CLP: A TRIPARTITE REPORT ON THE UNITED REPUBLIC OF TANZANIA – ZAMBIA – ZIMBABWE
for their future when liberalization is introduced.
Promoting fair competition improved the perfor-
translates into gains for the overall economy.
Under Section 3, the Act has an express “Object of
the Act” clause, which states as follows:
The object of this Act is to enhance the welfare of the
people of the United Republic of Tanzania as a whole
by promoting and protecting effective competition
in markets and preventing unfair and misleading
market conduct throughout the United Republic of
Tanzania in order to:
distribution and supply of goods and services;
(b) promote innovation;
and
(d) protect consumers.
The legislation provides broader goals for the
competition law, no different than in most laws in
the region. It would, however, seem that (a) and (c)
above may be referring to one and the same thing.
It is clear from the foregoing that the competition
legislation in the United Republic of Tanzania has
the core objectives which can be summarized as
While there have been no empirical studies to show
how the decisions of the competition authority have
omy,
it is observed that in mergers, the focus is on
prohibiting those mergers that create a dominant
position of market power and inherently an attempt
is made to “nip in the bud” barriers to market entry.
According to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and
Marketing Annual Report for 2009–2011, about
97 per cent of the industry in the United Republic
of Tanzania was in private hands. Further,
the Government had developed a Private Sector
Development Strategy (PSDS) to ensure broadbased
and inclusive participation in production
and trade. The PSDS entailed the establishment
of an enabling business environment through better
regulation; increased private sector access to
capital including “titled-land,” education, skills and
entrepreneurship as well as provision of business
support services in management, production and
marketing.
1.5 Process of Competition Law
Drafting
The process of drafting the competition legislation,
as in most countries in the Southern and
Eastern Africa region, were precipitated by the
collapse of the Soviet Union, which triggered political
and economic reform in countries that had
adopted the Soviet style of economic management.
Through the World Bank and IMF supported
SAPs, countries such as the United Republic of
Tanzania were compelled to begin a process of
privatization. Privatization meant industrial reorganization
where the SOEs, usually monopoly or
With this, the World Bank rendered assistance to
the United Republic of Tanzania to develop appropriate
legislation such as the privatization and
competition legislations. The usual legal process
that was followed was a consultation process with
key stakeholders such as consumer and trade related
NGOs, the chambers of commerce, and the
various Government ministries and departments
before the law was drafted using a consultant and
repositioned into a bill before Parliament through
the Ministry of Justice.
In 1994, the United Republic of Tanzania enacted
the Fair Trade Practices Act and established the
Fair Trade Practices Commission 30 . The Act covered
general anticompetitive trade practices, unfair
trade and consumer protection provisions.
However, this law did not achieve much, speculatively
because it was accepted without understanding
as part of the IMF SAPs and did not have
a national champion to promote and promulgate
it. The Commission itself was not well resourced
and supporting institutions not prepared. Interface
with regulators was equally problematic.
Under the auspices of the World Bank’s Project Implementation
Plan (PIP), a consultancy report was
prepared to assist the Presidential Parastatal Sector
Reform Commission (PPSRC), which recommended
the establishment of two multi-sectoral regulatory
agencies, namely the Fair Competition Commission
and the Fair Competition Tribunal. The PIP
included proposed organization structures, staffing
levels, procurement plan, three years capital
and operation manuals, implementation plan and
code of ethics for the two institutions 31 . Following
this, internal reviews followed and with the World