Goodluck Temu, PhD Candidate

Goodluck Temu 

temugoodluck@gmail.com

Affiliation

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Rupprecht Podszun

Year of Entry: May 2017

Biography

Goodluck Temu is an Assistant Lecturer at the University of Dar es Salaam School of Law. He holds Bachelor of Laws (LL. B-Hons), 2012 and Master of Laws (LL.M), 2013 from University of Dar es Salaam, and Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice from the Law School of Tanzania, 2016. He is currently pursuing PhD in Competition and Telecommunications Law at Bayreuth University, Germany. Apart from his teaching responsibilities, he was an Assistant Coordinator to the Tanzania-German Centre for Eastern Africa Legal Studies (TGCL) Dar es Salaam from 2014-2017. He also worked with the TGCL Germany office from August 2017 to December 2018. He is a Notary Public and Commissioner for Oaths and an advocate of the High Court of Tanzania.

Thesis

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

Research

Until four decades ago, many jurisdictions considered telecommunication sector a natural monopoly. As a result, telecommunications policies were highly monopolistic by protecting national telecom firms from competition. Competition was deemed unnecessary, and at times antagonistic with broader policies in the sector. However, from the 1980s, competition law gained prominence as a condition precedent for the effective performance of the sector.  Studies have shown that effective competition attracts more investment, encourages innovation, promotes efficiency and protects consumers interests.

To introduce and promote competition in a sector which was once under strong monopoly, many jurisdictions opted for sector regulation. Under this new framework, a regulator would facilitate competition by setting the necessary infrastructures (such as access regulation). However, sector regulation brings into light the role of competition authorities. For instance, should the regulator assume the role of competition agencies? Should it vacate when the full competition is achieved? Or can competition authorities and regulators co-exist? The main concern here is how best can competition be enforced in a sector where regulation takes place. While some jurisdictions separate competition enforcement (leaving it to competition agencies) from other technical regulators, others have allowed concurrent enforcement of competition. What follows is that regardless of the adopted design, there must be in place structures to ensure effective addressing of all competition concerns.

As in other countries, Tanzania also preferred regulation to introduce competition in the sector. However, unlike many jurisdictions, Tanzania’s framework excludes the competition agency in the sector. Thus, it is upon the regulator, the Tanzania Communication Regulatory Authority (the TCRA), to both regulate and enforce competition. Yet the review of the whole regulatory framework leaves some concerns on the enforcement efficacy. For example, while there is much jurisprudence on technical regulation of the sector, nothing exists relating to competition enforcement. This study, therefore, investigates the efficacy of the TCRA in enforcing competition. The main argument is that it is not sufficing to have in place rules prohibiting anti-competitive practices. There must also be exhaustive and sufficient enforcement structures to translate regulations into tangible results. To this end, the main research question is whether the current legal, policy, institutional and regulatory frameworks enable the effective enforcement of competition in the sector. The study analyzes the laws, examines institutional arrangements, and study regulatory and enforcement practice. In the end, it recommends necessary reforms for better regulation in the sector.

Publications

• Goodluck Temu (2015), “The Place and Role of Higher Learning Institutions in the Provision of Legal Aid in Tanzania”, Zanzibar Yearbook of Law, Vol 5, pp 301-320.
• Goodluck Temu (2014), “Reflections on the Enforcement of Competition Rules in Tanzania”, Eastern Africa Law Review, Vol 41(2), pp 86-124.
• Goodluck Temu (2018), “Jurisprudential Value of Tanga Fresh v FCC in the Law of Merger and Acquisition in Tanzania, Eastern Africa Law Review, Vol 42(2), 33-50