The executive secretary of the Gambia Competition
Commission (GCC), has lamented the insufficient funding given to his
institution by the government for the year 2011.
Mr. Amadou Ceesay said the budget submitted by the
Commission to The Gambia government to enable it operate efficiently and
effectively in the year 2011 was D25 million. “But only a paltry D7.9 million
was given,” he lamented.
“This amount was only able to cover the Commission’s
administrative expenses while the Commission had to seek financial and material
support from international organizations, which were disposed to supporting
newly-established, fledgling and under-funded institutions like ours (the GCC)
to realize our planned activities,” he revealed.
However, he acknowledged the GCC has received financial
support from various institutions like the European Union through its TradeCom
project, the Small States Network for Enterprise Development (SSNED), the
African Competition Forum (ACF), and International Development Research Centre
(IDRC).
Mr. Ceesay was presenting the 2011 financial report
of the GCC to the joint session of the Public Accounts and Public Enterprises
Committees (PAC/PEC) of the National Assembly on October 3, 2012.
The PAC/PEC adopted the reports of the GCC and commended
Commission for its “stable annual activity and audited financial reports.” They
noted that the reports are “binding and brilliant.”
The primary responsibility of the GCC is to ensure
that anti-competitive practices in the Gambia economy do not exist or are
minimized. This, it does through the investigation of possible anti-competitive
behaviour by enterprises.
