Ghana needs competition law – Justice Date-Bah
The Ghanaian economy needs a competition law and policy to ensure its proper functioning in the interest of consumers and producers, Mr Justice Samuel Date-Bah, retired Justice of Supreme Court and Chairman of University of Ghana Council, said on Thursday
He said Ghana did not have comprehensive competition legislation in spite of having had a few draft statutes formulated which never caught the fancy of policymakers as a priority matter.
Mr Date-Bah said this at a Policy Roundtable Discussion on Competition Reforms in Ghana organized by CUTS International in Accra.
CUTS International is an international non- governmental organization that advocates on consumer issues and trade.
The roundtable discussion was on the theme World Competition Day: Are Businesses and Consumers Loosing out due to absence of a Functional Competition Regime in Ghana.
It was organized to coincide with World Competition Day which falls on 5 December.
Mr Justice Date-Bah said in Ghana pieces of legislation had been passed which had an impact on competition and competitive behaviour in key markets such as the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission Act, 1997 (Act 538) and the Protection against Unfair Competition Act, 2000 (Act 589).
However, he said, the country was yet to establish any entity or authority to monitor competition generally in the economy and to take action to arrest malpractices affecting the competitive process.
Dr Edward Brown, the Director of policy advisory services at the African Centre for Economic Transformation (ACET), said there was the need for Ghana’s competition law and policy to conform to that of regional competition laws and policies such as those of ECOWAS and UEMOA.
He said regulatory bodies to monitor competition in Ghana must have enough power to deal with cartels and advised that the process being used to develop the competition policy and law for should be participatory enough to capture the views and inputs of all stakeholders.
Mr Appiah Kusi Adomako, Coordinator for CUTS Accra Office, said competition law promotes competition in markets and curbs anti-competitive conducts by firms.
Source: GNA