The Competition Commission of Mauritius (CCM), as Co-Chair of the African Competition Forum (ACF), hosted the ACF Bi-annual Meeting on 12th and 13th October 2016 at the Labourdonnais Waterfront Hotel, Port Louis.
Formally launched in March 2011, the ACF is a network of competition authorities of African countries, regrouping 41 out of 54 African countries. The ACF is tasked with the mission of promoting the adoption of competition laws, building the capacity of both newly established competition authorities and ACF member agencies as well as assisting in advocating for the implementation of competition reforms that benefit African economies.
The ACF Bi-annual Meeting was preceded by a half-day capacity building workshop which brought to the fore key issues affecting the day-to-day enforcement activities of competition agencies and which aimed to assist participants to discuss and share practical experiences on improving agency effectiveness: firstly, the means and resources available for implementing effective case management systems and secondly, embedding a competition culture among ACF Member agencies. In addition to reporting on key ACF activities and proceeding with the election of a new Steering Committee, the ACF Bi-annual Meeting also saw the years of bilateral relations and informal agency assistance between the CCM and the Competition Commission of South Africa (CCSA) culminating into the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the CCM and CCSA (MOU), thereby deepening the ties and formalising avenues of cooperation between the two agencies. The MOU was signed in the presence of the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Financial Services, Good Governance and Institutional Reforms, Mr J.D. PHOKEER.
The resource persons for the workshop included Professor Hassan Qaqaya, Senior Fellow, Competition and Consumer Program, Melbourne Law School, and Former Head of the United Nations Program on Competition and Consumer Policies (UNCTAD), as well as representatives of competition agencies from Gabon, Kenya, Malawi, and Swaziland.
Participants to the workshop included heads and other senior officials from national competition agencies in the pan-African region, representatives from ECOWAS as well as members of the Steering Committee of the ACF.
Please see below a few pictures taken during the event.
