According to Nelson Lembe, who was opening a seminar on "Competition Policy in Angola", the ARC's scope is to monitor restrictive competition practices, mergers and acquisitions of companies and the evaluation of public policies, a “sometimes very delicate” topic.
“Because we have to make recommendations and evaluate public policies, whether or not they violate the principles and values of competition, and we often have to make recommendations that, sometimes, are against the executive itself and we are part of the executive”, he said.
The official stressed that, in other parts of the world, entities like the ARC “are independent administrative entities, they are outside the executive, they do not even depend on orders from the executive branch”.
“Our framework currently is still [this], we have a guardianship that comes from the Ministry of Finance, and also oversight by the holder of the executive branch, the President of the Republic, but that is a path, that is the objective”, he stressed, adding that “there is already a law that supports this and it is still a process”.
Nelson Lembe, said that the institution has existed since 2019 and has been spreading the culture of competition in the country.
“It is something new, sometimes very poorly perceived, because it is immaterial, but people can see the benefits”, he said.
In turn, the head of the Legal and Litigation Department, Adalberto Cauaia, reinforced that in terms of best practices, it is recommended that the ARC be an independent entity, stressing that the Authority and other sectoral regulators may benefit from the Law on Independent Administrative Entities, with “a set of advantages for the functioning of the institutions”.
“But even in the current framework, the Authority is not under the executive's power of direction, it is a power of supervision of the holder of the executive power, through the Ministry of Finance”, he said, adding that the ARC has administrative, patrimonial, financial and discretionary autonomy to make decisions.
“This can certainly be improved and independence is one way. It cannot be just formal, it must also be substantial, incorporated into the practice of each employee, each leader", he highlighted.
Adalberto Cauaia said that, with regard to merger operations, between 2019 and 2023, a total of 59 operations were notified to the ARC, most of them last year, with the Authority having deliberated on 56 merger or acquisition processes of companies.
Of the operations notified, in that period, the majority occurred in the oil sector, with a total of 15 operations, followed by agriculture and construction, with five each, and the banking sector, with four.
Of the 56 acts of deliberation of the ARC, 49 were favourable.
