Times Of Swaziland: SA, ESWATINI SIGN MOU TO PROMOTE COMPETITION SA, ESWATINI SIGN MOU TO PROMOTE COMPETITION ================================================================================ BY KWANELE DHLADHLA on 26/06/2018 03:37:00 EZULWINI – It is the end of the road for bid rigging, price fixing, kickbacks and inflation of prices especially for companies that operate in South Africa and Eswatini. The Swaziland Competition Commission (SCC) and the South African Competition have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to promote efficiency and effectiveness in trade facilitation, competitive behaviour among businesses or companies. The MOU will serve to minimise and deter crimes such as, bid rigging, price fixing, market allocation, anti-competitive trade practises, unfair trading, kickbacks and inflation of prices. “The collaboration between the competition authorities will strengthen competencies in cross border issues,” said SCC Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Thabisile Langa during the signing ceremony held at Royal Villas yesterday. Langa said the process of institutionalising and legitimising competition law and policy required that not only must decision making by the commission be independent, fair, impartial and transparent, it was also important that the decisions were for the most part correct. “It is our desire that competition law and policy is woven into the fabric of the culture of the nation, so that it affects not only the way people do business but the way they think,” said Langa. SA Competition Commission Commissioner said the partnership was a continuation of a good relationship that has existed between the commissions which has also seen the sharing of skills and resources. He mentioned that the MoU would help address issues such as cartels and mergers which could affect genuine competition and pricing. Bonakele pointed out that they had undertaken a study which uncovered cartels within the construction industry which affected competition. Therefore, it would be important for the country to also guard against such behaviours going forward. “It will be important to share information on such cartels since they tend to behave in the same way in all the countries where they operate,” Bonakele advised.