June 29, 2022

The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), has urged consumers’ to seek redress from supermarkets and service providers over purchase of a
defective goods and items.

Mr. Babatunde Irukera, the Executive Vice Chairman of the Commission, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Wednesday.

Irukera said the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act (FCCPA) reserved the right for consumers to return goods and supermarkets were obliged to comply with it.

Some supermarkets and traders usually refuse a repair, replacement or refund of some faulty goods purchased from them by their customers.

He said that consumers’ could seek redress directly from the manufacturer, importer or distributor in line with Sections 136 and 116 of the Act.

He said that the Act stipulated that manufacturers, importers or distributors of goods were required to label or describe the goods in a manner that would be easily traceable to them to enable consumers reach them.

Irukera said that consumers could file a complaint to the Commission where producers or providers failed to comply with the law, including with respect to return, repair or refund.

“They have to also provide an implied warranty that the goods are of good quality and suitable for the purpose for which they are intended.

“Section 132(2) stipulates that consumers may return goods which do not meet the required standards to the undertaking that supplied the goods within three months after the delivery of the goods to the consumer.

“The undertaking shall either repair or replace the failed, unsafe or defective goods or refund to the consumer the price paid for the goods.

“Consumers have multiple avenues for redress in such situations, ” he said.

On the digital money lenders ‘loan sharks’ investigation, Irukera said the Commission had developed a Limited Interim Regulatory/Registration Framework and Guidelines to provide guidance to the operators and businesses.

The executive vice chairman said the guideline was pending the development of a more comprehensive framework by the Ad-hoc Joint Task Force.

According to him, more recently, the Commission has commenced discussions with payment platforms to understand their relationship with unethical money lenders.

Irukera said the Commission had also issued orders to suspend certain businesses from using the payment gateway services for the purpose of processing loan repayments from their customers.

As you may be aware, the Commission has frozen the bank accounts and payment platforms of some digital money lenders in order to suspend their activities.

“The Commission has issued orders to app stores to drawdown certain applications and to guide the process/requirements for publishing new digital money lending apps on the app stores”. (NAN)