Competition Commission appoints new execs

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Liberty Mncube has been appointed as chief economist and manager of the Policy and Research Division; Junior Khumalo as divisional manager of Enforcement and Exemptions and Thomas Kgokolo as chief financial officer.

All the appointments are effective from 1 January 2014.

"The new appointees will provide the necessary leadership to their very important divisions. It is important that we have a very strong and stable senior management team and I have full confidence that this team will take the Commission to higher levels.

"We are privileged as an institution that we are able to find most candidates internally and thereby ensure continuity. I am looking forward to working with the new members of our EXCO and wish them well in their new positions," said Tembinkosi Bonakele, the acting commissioner.

Mncube was most recently a principal investigator in the Enforcement and Exemptions Division of the Commission. Before that, he was a principal economist in the Policy and Research Division. He has been with the commission for the past six years.

Mncube holds a MSc in Economics from the University of York (UK) and is currently completing a PhD in Competition Economics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He has been a visiting PhD graduate student at the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics.

Prior to joining the commission, Mncube was a researcher at the Development Policy Research Unit at the University of Cape Town. Mncube is also a visiting senior lecturer at the University of Johannesburg. He has published widely on competition policy in local and international journals and has been a co-guest editor of a special issue on competition economics for the Journal of Economic & Financial Sciences.

As chief economist, Mncube will be central in ensuring that case and policy analysis is fully compatible with economic learning.

Khumalo takes over from Clint Oellermann as the head of Enforcement and Exemptions. Khumalo is the former principal economist in the Policy & Research division and having been at the commission for over 10 years, is one of the most experienced investigators. He is the past acting chief economist and in addition to his work in policy and research, he has worked as an investigator at the Mergers & Acquisitions and Enforcement & Exemptions Divisions.

Khumalo holds a BCom (Honours) degree from the University of Fort Hare, an MA degree in Economics from Colorado State University (US) and has attended several intensive courses in competition law and economics, including at Fordham Law School in the United States and the Mandela School of Law (Wits University).

Kgokolo is a charted accountant with extensive experience in both public and private sector finance. His most recent assignment was being a chief financial officer deployed by SAICA to assist with financial management improvement at FET colleges. He served his articles at one of the big four audit firms, where he had audit assignments in banking and financial markets.

He is the chairperson of Audit and Risk Committee at Mine Workers Provident Fund and a member of audit committee of the Bank SETA. He has consulted for the Auditor General, where he managed audit projects and worked as a quality assurance reviewer. He also worked with both National Treasury and School of Government to provide training at various government departments on financial accounting.

Oellermann moves to the Commissioner's Office as manager responsible for strategy, monitoring and evaluations, as well as strategic relations. He started working for the Commission on 01 October 2012 and has 11 years of experience in the forensic industry and 15 years management experience.