somebody somewhere that is making decisions went to school in the 70s, apparently, and has an extremely out of date concept of capitalism. there was this whole big data revolution in the 90s and 00s that uprooted all of this. they were able to actually get the data for the first time in the history of economics and they realized the homo economicus was just wrong: no, competition, does not decrease prices, it raises prices because it increases costs.
so, the entire concept is rooted in a basic point of ignorance and reflects priorities being set by somebody very out of touch with reality. some secretary or staffer needs to quietly get to shutting this down, because it will do nothing but waste money and embarrass the government. it's ideologically incoherent.
competition is an expensive cost that companies seek to avoid. when companies are forced to compete, it will always lead to higher prices, as consumers will always pay for the costs of competition through higher prices.