NBFIRA, CA sign MoU

Competition Authority (CA) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Non-Bank Financial Institutions Regulatory Authority (NBFIRA).

Chief Executives for the respective organisations, Thula Kaira and Oaitse Ramasedi signed the MoU on Wednesday afternoon. According to Kaira, the MoU will come a long way in assisting CA with knowledge insight in the non-bank financial sector. The partnership also allows the anti-trust body in making informed and fair decisions in competition and anti-competitive matters of the sector. Kaira also said that the non-bank financial sector is huge, diversified and complex and thus the CA needs to be supported before attending to the complex issues around the sector.

“Our concerns in the non-banking financial sector will likely be in connection with suspected cartels, abuse of dominance and anti-competitive mergers,” said Kaira, stressing that CA may also at some point carry out a competition study to understand the competition dynamics and their effect on growth within the non-bank financial sector.

“With the MoU however, we will be obliged to engage the NBFIRA more meaningfully on such issues. For his part, Ramasedi said the economic crisis has reinforced the importance of effective dialogue and collaboration between supervisory and regulatory authorities, aimed at assisting decisions that carry big influence in the wealth distribution and economic performance of the country. So far, CA has signed a number of MoU with organisations like Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC), Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Board (PPADB) and the Civil Aviation Authority Botswana (CAAB).

Kaira said the MoUs are vital in providing transparent and accountable working relationships between institutions. He said the CA is looking to sign an MoU very soon with the Bank of Botswana (BoB) and Botswana Communications Regulatory Authority (BOCRA).