Newly appointed Competition Commissioner Doris Tshepe
Newly appointed Competition Commission Commissioner Doris Tshepe has stressed that the Commission did not have ten years to set precedents on new amendments to the Competition Act.
“There is an urgency. We are in a crisis. Our economy is in crisis and in order to achieve desirable outcomes, we are going to have to work a bit faster,” she said.
Tshepe commended the work of the commission and the contribution that the economic regulator had previously made to advancing competition regulations that promote positive economic changes.
Speaking during a question-and-answer session with retired Competition Appeal Court Judge Dennis Davis on September 1, the final day of the sixteenth Annual Competition Law, Economics and Policy Conference, held in Sandton, Tshepe said she was excited to take up the new position and would implore the commission to push boundaries and be innovative.
“What the commission did, together with the Competition Tribunal and the Competition Appeal Court, during the Covid-19 crisis, was to show that there is capacity to find and deal with matters as efficiently as possible. We could learn and use those lessons to try and implement the amendments [to the Competition Act],” Tshepe said.
She was part of an expert panel that advised the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition on the amendments to the Competition Act, which was signed into law in 2019.
“It is ironic that I now have to come and implement them. What the amendments represent is a clear mandate on what my role should be at the commission,” she said.
Tshepe takes over from outgoing Competition Commissioner Tembinkosi Bonakele, who held the position since 2013.