Babatunde Irukera is the Executive Vice Chairman/CEO, Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC).
Confronted by the question if Buhari administration ensuring a consumer-friendly environment?
Softly he replied:
I don’t think that there is any administration that is as consumer-friendly as Buhari’s administration and that is not because I served in this administration. I have been a consumer writer advocate for many years and to think about what is happening in this administration, first the agencies that are working have never been taken nearly as important as this administration has regarded them. There has never been approval for the level of budgetary allocation as we have experienced; even though it is still insufficient it is hugely.
And most importantly, the president was the first to courageously sign a new law that promotes significantly higher levels of consumer protection and also competition, this is something we have been trying to get since 1999 and he was courageous enough to sign the law which is the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act 2018.
Asked if he has improved significantly when it comes to renovations in FCCPC,
Humbly he said “ the biggest thing I think we have done is democratizing access. Prior to when I took on this role the agency used to receive between seven hundred and one thousand complaints per annum, now it will be a bad week that we get a thousand complaints and you may ask why are we receiving a lot more complaints? There are two reasons for that. First, I think we succeeded in some parts in making people aware of their rights and the mechanism for enforcing the rights. We built confidence that is why we are getting more complaints. The other reason is that we built a solution that allows people to complain from their telephones, portal, by mobile applications, emails and by working in our offices.”
Culled from Leadership Newspaper
