FCCPC Generates N56b, Solicits Effective Media Support

By Mathew Ayoola

The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, FCCPC, has generated N56 billion as Internally Generated Revenue, IGR, in 2023.

The Executive Vice Chairman of FCCPC, Mr Babatunde Irukera, made this known at a media parley in Abuja with the theme “Reflections on the Road So Far, and Road Ahead”.

Mr Irukera who said 90 percent of the generated revenue was raised from penalties stated that N22.4 billion was remitted to the Federal Government.

According to him, businesses must be held accountable and sanctioned appropriately when they err.

“What makes the market stable is holding businesses accountable. The consequence management system is what we have adopted and we are not trying to close down businesses but they must know that if you snooze, you loose because you cannot distort the market and expect that there will be no consequences,” he said.

While analysing the Commission’s budget since 2017, Mr Irukera explained that thee Agency got N1 billion as budget from government and raked in an IGR of N154 million in that year.

The Executive Vice Chairman said the Commission received N3.3 billion, N1.3 billion as government budget in 2018 and 2019 respectively and N377 million as IGR in 2019.

He stated 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 and 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,” Mr Irukera stressed.

He pointed out that the Commission had since January 1, vacated the Federal Government’s budgetary provisions and restated the need for companies to take responsibility and create their stand-alone complaints resolution platforms to resolve consumer-related issues.

On the harassment of customers by digital money lenders, the Executive Vice Chairman said the Commission has reduced such menace by 80 percent adding that the desire and aspiration of the Commission was to eliminate defamatory messages, intrusion on people’s privacy and achieve more ethical lending.

Edited By Grace Namiji