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Atoki accuses telecoms, aviation, banking sectors of consumer rights abuses

By BusinessNews Staff on April 17, 2015

The Consumer Protection Council Nigeria (CPC), has identified the telecoms, aviation, banking and power sectors as areas that record the highest level of consumer rights abuses in Nigeria.

Director General of the agency, Mrs. Dr. Dupe Atoki, made the observation at a public lecture organised by the Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.

The theme of the lecture is: “The state of consumer rights protection in Nigeria.”

She said the era of consumer rights abuses may soon come to an end as top companies in Nigeria will now be compelled to abide by the global standard.

She pointed out that the council has already carried out successful major interventions in the food and beverage and aviation sectors which modified the behaviours of all the other players in those sectors for best practices.

To get the best for Nigerian consumers, she said the CPC has adopted major strategies of enforcing consumer rights and ensuring company’s compliance with the council’s enabling laws.

According to her, the council has started the move through sectoral intervention, litigation and improvement of the visibility of the council by using new methods and the redress of consumer complaints.

The CPC boss stated that intervention in the activities of usually the dominant player in a given sector resonates into a bandwagon compliance and block adherence to regulation and best practice.

She said: “Sectoral intervention was identified as a major strategy for the evaluation of business operations under the various sectors in order to arrest identified adverse trends and thereby resolve individual complaints in the long run.”

She explained that this strategy is intended to focus on a sector by undertaking in-depth analysis of consumer complaints and total evaluation of business practices to identify systemic irregularities.

To enforce right, she believed that CPC must have the strategy of criminal prosecution of recalcitrant businesses or litigation to achieve satisfactory redress.

She admitted the low awareness of consumer rights in the country and pointed out that the council was undertaking different measures to ensure increased knowledge of consumer rights and responsibilities.

These measures, she noted, are hosting of consumer roundtable on phone rights, publication of a compendium of the rights of telecom subscribers, launch of ‘Check the Best before Date’ campaign.

Other measures, according to her, are revamping and updating the council’s website on a regular basis, using of social media to interact with consumers and establishing a strong media presence with a view to remaining in the consciousness of consumers.

The DG expressed her concern about the consumer rights abuses in sectors like satellite television, land transport, property, hospitality, food and beverage, home appliances, automobile and electronic commerce.

She stated equivocally that; “while free market is currently operational in Nigeria, all forms of consumer abuse still pervade virtually every sector of the economy denying consumers their rights,”

Highlighting the abuses, she said that in the telecom sector, for instance, “consumers still contend with drop calls, unsolicited texts, calls, poor network, credit wipe off, amongst others, while consumers in the aviation sector experience regular delays and cancellation of flights without notice, damage and loss of baggage without compensation et cetera.”

In the banking sector, she said consumers experience ATM dispense error cases with prolonged resolution period, POS terminal issues, unexplained debit on consumer accounts. Equally, in the power sector, “consumers complain of outrageous estimated billings, non-provision of transformers, metres, wrongful disconnections and inadequate electricity supply.

[ThisDay]

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