29 Mar 2015

Assistant Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Sadique Kebonang says Botswana will never be globally competitive unless the nation produces excellent products and services for both the local and global markets.

Officially opening the fourth national competition conference in Gaborone on March 26, he said the starting point for global competitiveness was not just access to markets but fair competition between the enterprises in the various stages of the supply chain.

Mr Kebonang stated that the annual competition conferences provided an opportunity for competition stakeholders to engage on issues of mutual concern as well as provide platform to raise awareness on competition issues.

“We need to build and sustain a healthy culture of competition because it is a starting point for innovation and competitiveness,” said Mr Kebonang. The assistant minister said this year’s theme, “Competition and the supply chain” is particularly relevant given today’s market realities where a market cannot function and deliver without a fair supply chain from input supplies to consumption.

He said the government goes all out to facilitate an enabling environment by putting in place all the policy frameworks such as the Competition Act and go further by providing technical and financial support through various agencies.

Mr Kebonang said the National Competition Policy of 2006 and the Competition Act were premised on the view that fair competition would lead to lower prices, wider choices, innovation and quality products and services.

The assistant minister said his ministry has come up with Economic Diversification Drive (EDD) geared towards stimulating local manufacturing industries by ensuring that public institutions spend part of their procurement budget to purchase goods and services produced locally.

Delivering a keynote address, Bramer Life Insurance chief executive officer, Ms Regina Sikalesele- Vaka said while supply chains had existed for a long time most organisations have only paid attention to what was happening within their four walls only.

She said few businesses understood the entire chain of activities that ultimately delivered products to the final customer with the end result of ineffective supply chains. “Supply chain management then is active management of supply chain activities to maximise customer value and achieve a sustainable competitive advantage.”

Ms Sikalesele- Vaka said supply chains management had not yet become embedded in management practice with management approaches illustrating that supply chain falls outside the radar of modern organisations when ironically it was the supply chain that sustains those organisations.

She recommended that procurement should become an executive management imperative with regular checks and balances adding that government should set clear and measurable targets for organisations to ensure compliance with government policies. ENDS