Babatunde Irukera, director general of Consumer Protection Council (CPC), said consumer complaints with regard to seeking redress for dissatisfaction has risen to 30 percent in the past eight months he took over the saddle of leadership.
Irukera made this disclosure at an interactive session with key civil Society Organisation, CSOs while also urging them to join forces with the council in consumer rights advocacy. He also attributed the increase in consumer complaints to widening of the complaints channels by the council using the social media.
He noted that the partnership with the CSOs will assist in educating consumers while also holding industries accountable properly.
Speaking further,he said,”We are working with Mac-Arthur Foundation in ensuring for instance that electricity consumers are constantly updated on their rights,in terms of consumer awareness.Consumer education is a line item in advocating and making a good case for that seriously,with this kind of collaborations”
The director general also noted that the council is working toward ensuring industries bear share responsibilities in terms of putting up advertorials on any consumer complaints,without just leaving the whole burden for the council.
He said,”The model that we have been adopting in ensuring that industries bear shared responsibilities in addressing consumer concerns is lacking. What we would be adopting is to penalise companies that continually disatisfy their consumers.”
He said,”There must be a helpline line to call on products,so that consumers don’t carry the burden alone to CPC while leaving the company that has a social contract with them at the first instance.”
Also, speaking on expectations on collaboration with the Civil liberty Organisations, he said,”The Most important thing to achieve from here is to first to let the Civil society work with us in ensuring a shared burden of ensuring consumer satisfaction.
“It would enable us to also create the network while ensuring what the policy direction is,and how best we could get to where we are going.”
Ambimbola Uzoma, a United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, UNIDO at the event said the partnership between the CPC and the the Civil Societies would widen sensitisation of the consumers in ensuring better expectations from the manufacturers in the country.
Also in her response, Aderinto Opeyemi the country director of African Youths International Development Foundation,who represented one of the CSOs said the collaboration is key in ensuring a better consumer advocacy to over 180 million Nigerians.
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