ISLAMABAD, Nov 12: The government here on Monday issued the much-awaited notification to formally set up the Competition Commission, along with the appointment of its five members, including chairman, with a view to effectively regulate businesses across Pakistan.

According to the notification, the copy of which was made available to Dawn, Mr Khalid M. Mirza has been appointed chairman with effect from Oct 2.

Mr Abdul Ghaffar has also been appointed member of the commission from the same date.

However, Ms Rahat Kaunain Hassan, Dr Joseph Wilson and Ms Maleeha Mimi Bangash were appointed three other members of the Competition Commission with immediate effect.

The first meeting of the commission, replacing Monopoly Control Authority (MCA), was held on Monday, immediately after the issuance of notification.

Mr Mirza, who was earlier chairman of defunct MCA, served in the International Finance Commission (IFC) from 1968 to 1983 and then 1983 to 2000.

From March 2000 to February 2003, he was the chairman of SECP.

He also worked in the World Bank in a senior position from 2003 to 2006.

Mr Ghaffar belongs to the Income Tax Group and had earlier worked in the MCA twice, from Nov 23, 2005, to Feb 28, 2005.

Ms Hassan is a legal practitioner who has been general manager and Executive Director (Law) in the SECP.

Dr Wilson is associate professor of law at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) and an expert in competition law and policy in Pakistan while Ms Bangash is an MBA from the university of Chicago with 12 years’ international experience of working in the financial sector.

She holds the number two slot in MCB’s asset management outfit.

After the first meeting, Mr Mirza told Dawn that the meeting approved various administrative, financial and logistics issues. “Now we are going to move quickly to regulate businesses and ensure fairplay in the field,” he said.

Responding to a question, he said that some of the issues which were pending in the MCA needed to be dropped, he said these issues would come up for discussion in the next meeting.

He said that the new commission was open to receive complaints from public on any issue and that the objective was to remove impediments in the way of businesses.

The MCA had become a defunct body on Oct 2 when President Gen Pervez Musharraf promulgated an ordinance repealing the Monopoly and Restrictive Trade Practices Ordinance of 1970 under which the MCA was created.

The World Bank had promised adequate funding to help establish the Competition Commission. Strict laws have been proposed to check cartalisation and business manipulation.

Sources said there still exist various departmental hurdles for broadening the scope of the proposed Competition Commission for including merger of the companies.

The World Bank is said to have asked the government to firm up an action plan, to be supported by the donors for making the Competition Commission a vibrant body.

Initially, the bank had agreed to offer roughly $10 million for setting up of the new organisation.

The bank is assisting in providing necessary funding package for the capacity building as a new institution.

The World Bank has been urging Pakistan to track down illicit cartels to regulate businesses in the absence of which it would be difficult to attract sizable local and foreign investment in the country.

The bank believed that proven or suspected cartels have existed and many still exist in cement, sugar, ghee, autos, fertiliser and perhaps other industries which need to be investigated.

The bank is of the view that cartels were by a long way the chief impediment to competition in Pakistan and that there was a need to conduct a thorough inquiry as what types of anti-competitive conduct are most prevalent in Pakistan.

The World Bank has also asked the government to create a new “Mergers and Acquisitions Division” with a view to ensuring transparency and prudent business practices by banks, corporate giants and other companies.

The on-going mergers and acquisitions of banks and companies in Pakistan have invoked the World Bank interest which wanted an early creation of the Mergers and Acquisition Division in the proposed body.