Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Temu, Goodluck

Titel

Regulation and Enforcement of Competition Law in Tanzania’s Telecommunications Sector: Law, Institutional Design and Practice

Ort / Verlag

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses

Erscheinungsjahr

2021

Link zum Volltext

• ProQuest

Quelle

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• This study focuses on the regulation of Tanzania’s telecommunications sector and enforcement of competition law. The central question under investigation is whether the national telecommunications regulator, the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA), is well-equipped to enforce competition law in the sector. This question emanates from the TCRA’s design as the sole enforcer of competition law. Except for mergers and acquisitions, which fall under the Fair Competition Commission’s jurisdiction, the TCRA has jurisdiction in all other competition matters. Thus, being both the regulator and competition enforcement authority, one is justified to expect that its design would provide ex-ante pro-competition regulation and proactive and effective ex-post regulation and competition law enforcement. That is not the case.While the TCRA stands as a promising regulator, its design and capacities are only limited to the sector’s ex-ante technical regulation. It has fallen short on competition enforcement on an ex-post basis. Although there is a framework that empowers the Authority to enforce competition, there is no actual enforcement because of the existing legal and institutional weaknesses. Thus, as it stands now, in the absence of significant legal and institutional overhaul, the TCRA cannot effectively enforce competition in the sector.This study is primarily qualitative. It has taken an analytical approach in answering research questions, which probes into the regulator’s efficacy in addressing competition matters in the sector. In a pyramidal fashion, it builds a base by generally introducing telecommunications. It then proceeded to introduce regulation and competition as applicable in the telecommunications sector. In so doing, the study analyzes relevant policies, laws, regulations, and practices, among others, to ascertain the extent to which they promote effective competition. Based on evaluation criteria inspired by literature from Tanzania and other jurisdictions, the study examines the efficacy of the TCRA as an exclusive competition enforcement authority. The examined aspects include the sufficiency of the legal mandate, the sufficiency of the procedural framework, the regulator’s institutional design, the regulatory independence, and the sufficiency of resources.