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Home > Role of Stakeholders
in Promoting Competition in Zambia
Introduction
The enactment of
the Competition and Consumer Protection Act in 2010
to replace the Competition and Fair Trading Act of
1994 is a landmark in the history and governance of
Zambia’s competition and consumer protection regime.
Any sound and effective regulatory regime hinges on
two things; elaborateness of the legal instrument
driven by an inclusive approach and how
participatory and inclusive is the enforcement
process!
The vanity of the new law hinges on its great
attempts of addressing some of the deficiencies of
the former. The new law which has embraced both
competition and consumer protection, aims at, among
other things, reinforcing the objectives of the
previous Act, and gives the Commission the
much-needed powers to further evolve as an effective
market regulator unlike in the previous act.
However, for it to be effectively enforced there is
need for all key stakeholders in competition and
consumer protection enforcement to complement the
Commission’s work by also effectively playing their
part. This seems to have been largely wanting in the
process of enforcement of the earlier legislation.
Knowledge about the role which these players can
play in Zambia seems not to have been disseminated
as it should have been. The judiciary, legal
fraternity, sector regulators, trade unions, civil
society, media and parliamentarians are among the
stakeholders who need to play a key role in ensuring
that the tenets of a competitive culture and
consumers protection prevails and sustained.
Therefore, to redefine and highlight the role of
stakeholders in the implementation and enforcement
of competition laws, CUTS International Lusaka in
partnership with FES, held a stakeholders meeting in
Lusaka, Zambia, on March 07, 2011. The workshop
sought to help promote an inclusive approach to the
enforcement of the new law and fostered the creation
of a better informed constituency that would
participate in policy processes actively and
effectively.
Presentations:
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