• implementation of scheduled public investment projects, the value of which is currently at ZAR690bn;
• `Intensified’ public sector employment programmes;
• measures against “‘excessive’ investment slowdown by the private sector” (this presumably means something like state support, or rescue packages for `key’ industries); and
• expanded social expenditure (through existing channels – the old age pension and child care grant)

See the whole article  here.

We wish on this occasion to extend our congratulations to the people and the leadership of Zambia, Ghana and the United States of America for elections the symbolism of which transcends the narrow boundaries of their nation-states.

The article then goes on to describe the creation of the Commission as somehow being related to the conclusion of the Economic Partnership Agreements with the European Commission. But there are good reasons for Namibia to improve its competition law enforcement, independently of extra-continental trade agreements. For instance, the South African authority has been extremely active in the prosecution of cartels in recent times. There has been alleged cartel activity and bid-rigging in bread, maize, steel, pipe products, amongst others in the past few years. Given that almost all the companies allegedly involved operate also in Namibia (after all Namibia and South Africa are both in the Southern African Customs Union), it would be surprising if this collusive behaviour did not also extend into Namibia.

This also goes to the possible need for regional approaches to competition law enforcement, discussed in this article in the Business Day in which Nkonzo Hlatshwayo, erstwhile head of M&A at the SA Competition Commission floats the idea of a joint COMESA / SADC regional authority. The progress on these topics has been slow. There has been little indication that there is the real political will to confront some of the sovereignty questions involved in terms of effective regional integration. The last I checked, Swaziland for instance was still a member of SACU, SADC and COMESA, each of which call for a single common external tariff.

In the mean time, while countries decide on which regional groupings to join and how to finalise the EPAs, and what shape domestic competition policy should have, collusive behaviour and other anticompetitive conduct will continue to go unchecked.

In The Know: Situation In Nigeria Seems Pretty Complex

(h/t dingel)

Update: China in Africa has more

Thinking broadly about the land question in Southern Africa in the 20th century as a legacy of colonialism and a dispersion of political power in postcolonial Zimbabwe between War Veterans and urban based worker unions, Mamdani thinks there is more going on in a letter to the London Review of Books. But then R.W Johnson (never heard of him before to be honest), response letter finds Mamdani’s arguments selective and altogether spurious. However, Mamdani’s come back letter suggests that his respondents either romanticize Mugabe or demonise him with little room for other more interesting arguments.