By Etse Kassim, Abuja
The Consumer Protection Council (CPC) says consumers’ complaints increased by 30 percent within the last eight months.
Tunde Irukera, Director General of the Council who disclosed this in Abuja on Tuesday at a round table organised for Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) , said the recorded complaints were those related to how some industries and service providers were short-changing consumers.
“I don’t have the number (of consumer’s complaints and remedies) for the year for now, but I can tell you that the period I have been in office I have seen complaints go up by at least 30 per cent, and we have also seen remedies go up exponentially, as a matter of fact we are reaping more of complaints,” he said.
Irukera, who said he inherited a “broken CPC” as there were no appropriate structures on ground in the organisation to effectively carry out the agency’s mandate, said protecting consumer right is “a difficult job” that need the support of all stakeholders.
He called on the NGOs and CSOs to partner with CPC in ensuring that millions of Nigerians, especially those at the grassroots level, are educated and sensitised to avoid being short-changed by industries and other service providers.
Speaking further, he expressed the readiness of the Council to ensure all the relevant support is giving to CSOs in reaching out to Nigerians on consumer’s rights, including financial support. prescription drugs from canada
“Like I said, there are other organisations that are interested in what the civil societies are doing, for instance Mac Arthur Foundation has interest in electricity and they making a significant investment in making sure electricity consumers are sufficiently educated on their rights.
“Consumer education is a line item in the CPC budget and we are talking with the Federal Government, we are advocating and making our good case on consumer education in a way that we can allocate some of it to how we do the sensitisation which might imply making small contribution to the CSOs to do the work.” Irukera said.
