Penalties push self-funding Consumer Protection Commission’s revenue to N56bn

The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) has announced that its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), from penalties and other sources reached N56 billion in 2023, with about N22.4 billion remitted into the government’s coffers as required by the law.

This is just a year after it opted out of being funded by the treasury, beginning January 1, 2023.

Babatunde Irukera, the Executive Vice-Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) said this during a strategic media engagement themed, ‘’Reflections on the road so far, and the road ahead’’ held on Thursday in Abuja.

He disclosed that the feat came despite the fact that the agency was taken out of federal government budgetary allocation and that up to 90% of the revenues came from penalties as the agency does not get money from tax, take fees for registration or get support or sponsorship from companies.

“In , 2017, the agency got N1 billion budget from the government and raked an IGR of N154 million in that year. In 2018 and 2019, the Commission got N3.3 billion, N1.3 billion as government budget respectively and made N377 million as IGR in 2019”, Irukera said.

He added that in 2020, the Commission’s budget from the government was N887 million and it got an IGR of N864 million.

“By 2021, the government approved a budget of N1.8 billion to the Commission and the agency generated N4 billion and remitted N1.6 billion,” he said.

“In 2022, the government budget was N1.3 billion for the agency, the agency did not touch a single kobo of the operational or capital expense, the agency made N5.2 billion and remitted N2.6 billion. In 2023, our IGR is N56 billion and we remitted to the government N22.4 billion.”

He said the Commission had since January 1, vacated the federal government’s budgetary provisions adding that, 90 percent of the IGR was gotten from penalties.

“We will not even let them buy tires for our vehicles. This demonstrates the limitless possibilities of the country. We believe that the market should be unlocked. We believe businesses should be allowed to operate well, we believe they should thrive. But we also believe in consequences. We believe that businesses should be held accountable.

“If you don’t hold people accountable, you cannot promote good behavior. And that is why there is no case in court. There is no reporting against us anywhere about whether we are oppressive or whether we are over -penalized as a matter of fact.”

He said the market can be stable when regulators hold operators accountable and companies should create their own stand alone complaint resolution platform as even the multinationals who are in the country have these platforms in their originating countries through which people can complain directly to them.

His words: “That’s what makes a market stable, not the rhetoric like all the costs of doing businesses are. What makes the market stable is unlocking those problems but holding the operators accountable. You can’t mistreat people and expect not to be held accountable, and that’s the position we’ve taken.

“If you buy milk and you’re unhappy with it, we don’t have a storage of milk. We can’t give you what you bought. We can’t even tell the company to stock our store so that when people complain we can give them.

“But when you get to us, we have to go to them. And the methodology that works is for them to do it and when they don’t do it, it comes to us and we make them pay so that they do it. And we’ve been singing this song for years now.

‘’It’s saying to the company, create your own stand alone complaint resolution platform. Even the multinationals in the countries where they come from, people can complain directly to them.”

Irukera advised companies to create these platforms as the FCCPC cannot handle complaints across all industries in the country and urged businesses to establish their proper feedback mechanism as any business that does not have this does not deserve the patronage of the people.

“There is no way the FCCPC is going to be able to handle all these complaints across industries, across the country.

“Any business that is not willing to establish their proper feedback mechanism. for the people it sells produce to, does not deserve the patronage of the citizens of this country. We must necessarily move away from what we think, and that’s why I said earlier on, that when people complain about products, we always look to say, “What is the FCCPC doing?”