The FCCPC is considering imposing penalties on businesses that lack consumer complaint channels

The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) says it's considering imposing penalties on businesses that don't have an easily accessible platform for resolving consumer complaints.

This was said by Babatunde Irukera, the commission's executive vice-chairman, during a press conference in Abuja on Tuesday.

Irukera bemoaned most companies' incapacity to successfully resolve consumer concerns, claiming that this has resulted in an increase in the number of daily complaints received by the commission.

The FCCPC's complaint resolution team has evolved into a multi-company customer service desk, according to him.

"Players are getting to us more because they can't find the people who sold them items," he said, according to NAN.

"These corporations do not have a distinct, clear, accessible, well-publicized resolution tool for individuals to contact them." "What we're going to do is make regulations, and if you don't have them, you'll face a penalty."

According to Irukera, the commission is working on a complaint resolution portal that will allow businesses to subscribe and receive any customer complaints that pertain to them.

"With your plugging in, as the system is, when a complaint is filed against you, it is now your responsibility to remedy it, and we are seeing it," he said.

"Now that we've developed what they should have, we'll start charging them (businesses) a subscription." "The federal government should not be the one building companies' customer support platforms."

"We'll charge them a membership to connect, and if they don't resolve complaints on our dashboard, we'll become a secondary resolution mechanism, and they'll be responsible for the cost of resolution."

Irukera stated that the FCCPC does not have the ability to restrict airfare increases.

According to him, the FCCPC Act only allows the commission to submit a price-regulation proposal to the president in certain instances.

"It is the president who will authorize a price to be imposed or regulated, and it must be gazetted and for a limited period of time with a time limit," he explained.

"And the goal of that regulation must be to encourage competition or to restrict prices for a short period of time in a market where there is no competition."

Irukera said the FCCPC has frozen an additional 30 bank accounts operated by digital lenders as part of the commission's crackdown.

"Between the time we raided and today, we've identified another 30 accounts, all of which have been frozen, and we'll keep freezing them as we find them," he stated.

"I am confident that, as a result of our activities and the nature of our involvement with the lending companies, at least three of the main ones have had their businesses adversely impacted by either our search or the account closure; they are adjusting their operations."

"It will take some time, but the space is altering now," he says.