FCCPC mulls penalising companies without consumer complaint channels

The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) says it is considering imposing penalties on companies without an accessible consumer complaint resolution platform.

Babatunde Irukera, executive vice chairman of the commission, said this at a media parley on Tuesday in Abuja.

Irukera frowned at the inability of most companies to effectively resolve consumer complaints, saying the development had increased the number of daily complaints received by the commission.

He said the FCCPC’s complaint resolution team has become a multi-company customer service desk.

“The reason why people are coming to us more is that they can’t find the people who sold stuff to them,” NAN quoted him as saying.

“There is no standalone, clear, accessible, well-publicised resolution platform by these companies for people to reach them.

“What we are doing is that we are going to write regulations, if you do not have that, there will be a penalty.”

Irukera said the commission is developing a complaint resolution platform that would allow companies to plug in through a subscription and receive any consumer complaint relating to them.

“With your plugging in, as the system is, as a complaint comes against you, it pushes it down to you and it is now your obligation to resolve it and we are seeing it,” he said.

“We will now start making them (companies) pay a subscription since we created what they should have.

“The federal government should not be the one creating customer service platforms for companies.

“We will make them pay a subscription to hook up and then when they do not resolve complaints on our dashboard, we will become a secondary resolution mechanism and make them pay the cost of resolution.”

On airfare increase, Irukera said the FCCPC lacks the authority to regulate prices.

He said the FCCPC Act provides that only in limited circumstances can the commission make a recommendation for price regulation to the president.

“It is the president that will approve for price to be imposed or regulated and it must be gazetted and for a short period of time stating how long it will be,” he explained.

“And the purpose of that regulation must be to promote competition or in a market where there is no competition and you need to regulate prices for a short period of time.”

Speaking on the commission’s clampdown on digital lenders, Irukera said the FCCPC has frozen additional 30 bank accounts operated by the companies.

“Between the time we raided and now, we have discovered additional 30 accounts and all have been frozen and we will continue to freeze as we discover them,” he said.

“I am certain that with the actions that we have taken and the nature of the engagement we are having with the loan companies, at least three of the major ones that their businesses have been severely affected by either our search or the account closure; they are modifying.

“It will take some time but I can assure you that the space is changing now.’’