The Federal Government says it will create laws to encourage healthy competition.
The Nigerian government is planning to create new laws to check unfair trade practices and monopoly in the era of privatisation.
The new reform laws will restrict the formation of cartels, check collusive practices regarded as being in restraint of trade and protect consumers against objectionable trade practices.
The laws include the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection bill 2014 and the Nigeria Postal Commission bill.
When passed, the laws will restrict the mergers and acquisitions of organizations which could substantially lessen competition and prohibit the creation of monopoly and abuse monopoly powers.
The Information Minister, Labaran Maku, who was briefing journalists after the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting that lasted for about 20 minutes, said the Nigerian economy does not have laws or agencies that deal with unfair trade practices.
Mr. Maku said the laws will also restrict the mergers and acquisition of organizations which could substantially lessen competition.
He said the two new bills, when made into law, will boost private sector participation and provide a level playing ground in various sectors of the Nigerian economy. Mr. Maku also said the laws will support the achievements recorded in the Nigerian economy in the past 10 years.
The information minister told journalists that FEC set up two committees on the different bills headed by Vice President Namadi Sambo, with relevant ministers as members. Their mandate is to look at the bills before final copies are sent to the National Assembly for consideration.
The committee has been given two weeks to work on the bills and present them to FEC before their transmission to the National Assembly for consideration and passage.
"The Nigerian economy has been undergoing fundamental reforms for the past ten years. These reforms have been aimed at achieving a transition from a state-dominated economy, where all the key sector of the economy are dominated by government parastatals to transit into a market-driven economy that opens all sector of economy to private
sector competition," Mr. Maku said.
"Now in the course of these reforms, a number of government agencies and companies have been privatized in the last ten years or have been opened up for competition. The purpose of the reform is to ensure that where government has constituted a clog in the wheel of progress, particularly in key sectors, we opened them up to ensure increased
private sector investments."
"In the course of these reforms, it has become very clear that unless we undertake serious policy legal framework to ensure competition in the economy, what will happen is that the previous monopoly exercised by government companies or parastatals in the key sectors of the economy will simply be repeated by private sector monopoly as people
who buy these companies may block further development of the sector unless you have in place a legal framework that regulates competition in the economy," said the information minister.
Mr. Maku said that the creation of such agency is necessary in an open economy for healthy competition to thrive.
"Wherever you do not have legal framework to regulate the economy, to prevent anti-trust, to prevent abuse of trade practices, what happens is that one or two companies could quickly take over and monopolise sectors of the economy and prevent other people from coming in.
"And that kind of thing reduces the capacity of the economy to prosper. In addition to this, without legal framework to achieve competition and enforce good trade practices, consumers are doomed.
People will engage in restrictive trade practices or dumping, for example, to prevent other players from selling in the economy" he said.
On the Nigeria Postal Commission bill, Mr. Maku said that there is a need to reform the postal sector in order to allow the private sector to come in.
Nigerian government to check unfair trade practices.
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