Enforcing the Competition Law in Namibia A Toolkit - cuts ccier

9. ESSENTIAL ELEMENTSFORSUCCESSBuilding an effective competition regime in the context of developing countriesis no easy job. The dearth of expertise on competition issues as well as thenewness of the same makes the mere task of drafting a good and appropriatelegislation a huge challenge. Furthermore, even after the law has been draftedwith much thought and caution, there is still no guarantee that it will meet itsaims.Nowadays, Namibia faces considerable challenges in the implementation ofcompetition policy, including:• creating adequate institutional capacity• ensuring the independence of the competition authority• regulating the activities of South African firms in the Namibian economy• developing a complementary relationship with sector-specific regulators,for example, electricity and telecommunications 729.1 Sequencing the Competition Law ImplementationToward such success, one of the useful suggestions made so far is to establisha competition authority with a phased approach, which may be appropriate tothe design and implementation of a competition law. 73 The sequencingillustrated below is a refined version based upon a presentation made by GesnerOliviera (former chairman of the Brazilian Competition Agency) at a CUTSmeeting in 2002. He developed this on a simple idea inspired by World Bank’sShyam Khemani and Mark Dutz. 74Given its limited resources and novelty, a competition authority should startwith actions, which will most likely benefit the market and build its ownacceptability. Gradually it would introduce measures, which require moresophisticated cost/benefit analysis. Merger review comes after conduct controldue to the fact that the welfare effect of a merger might be less clear than thatof price fixing or collusion, the latter being positively welfare diminishingand easily identifiable by the polity and public.Development is a continuum, and the stages will never be all this clear, and insome cases different priorities will be appropriate. In some economies,especially those that have a legacy of state-owned or other dominant firmslike Namibia, abuse of dominance/monopolisation might also require a prioritysimilar to that given to horizontal restraints. 75 However, in exercising its powersto tame public sector monopolies, the authority has to do it slowly rather than94 Enforcing the Competition Law in Namibia: A Toolkit