The Competition Authority of Kenya has appointed Adano Wario (right) as acting director-general after the term of Wang’ombe Kariuki (left) ended. PHOTO | COURTESY
The Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK) has appointed Adano Wario as acting director-general after the term of Wang’ombe Kariuki ended.
Dr Wario currently serves as the Director for Planning, Policy and Research at the agency and will be taking up the new role with immediate effect.
“In order to ensure business continuity and uninterrupted service delivery, the Board of the Competition Authority of Kenya has appointed Dr Adano Wario to serve in the capacity of acting director-general following the end of Mr Wang’ombe Kariuki second and last term,” said CAK chairman Nelson Ndirangu in a statement.
Mr Kariuki whose term ended this month was appointed in January 2013 as the first director-general at the authority, serving for two terms of five years each. Earlier, he had served in the same post in an acting capacity for one-and-a-half years from August 2011.
It is during Mr Kariuki’s tenure at the CAK that efforts to protect consumer and employee rights was intensified. This is seen in legislation demanding that merged firms retain workers, supermarket owners pay suppliers on time and retailers refund overcharged consumers.
“Through enforcement against abuse of buyer power, Mr Kariuki facilitated refunds of over Sh2.4 billion to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the retail and insurance sectors,” said Mr Ndirangu.
He noted consumer savings over the past three years had exceeded Sh15 million.
Dr Wario has said he will prioritise deepening competition in sectors such as the digital economy, agriculture, financial services and promoting the competitiveness of SMEs.
“As I take lead of the team of CAK colleagues, I am fully aware that teamwork is paramount in order to advance the mandate, vision and mission of the Authority. It will be an uphill task to try and fill Mr Wang’ombe Kariuki’s shoes. However, we shall, without relenting, try to follow his footsteps as we scale the ladder of sustainable economy for our country through effective competition enforcement,” he said.
In 2018, the CAK established a Buyer Power Department mandated to protect suppliers of supermarket chains from exploitation. This was following mounting concerns over the negative influence that businesses have had over suppliers, which is blamed for the collapse of Nakumatt and Uchumi supermarkets.
The two retail chains had accumulated supplier debt of nearly Sh20 billion by the time of the collapse.
Buyer power means the ability of a purchaser to extract more favourable terms from a supplier on whom it can also impose significant opportunity costs by, for example, delaying payments.
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