Consumer’s Rights’ Commission Generates N56bn from Penalties in 2023, Remits N22.4bn

*Irukera: If you don’t hold people accountable, you cannot promote good behaviour

James Emejo in Abuja

The Executive Vice-Chairman/Chief Executive, Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, (FCCPC), Mr. Babatunde Irukera, yesterday, said the commission generated N56 billion in Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) from issuing penalties to erring companies in 2023.
He said of the amount, the sum of N22.4 billion was remitted to the federation account as operating surplus, compared to N5.2 billion recorded in the previous year, out of which N2.6 billion went into government’s coffers.

Speaking at a strategic media engagement, with the theme, “Reflections on the Road So Far, and Road Ahead”, Irukera said, “We believe that businesses must be held accountable. If you don’t hold people accountable, you cannot promote good behaviour.”
He said 90 per cent of the revenue came from penalties, adding that the FCCPC was no longer funded from the treasury.
He said having applied to be removed from the annual budget list, the National Assembly had effectively excluded the commission from the public purse from December 2022 – becoming a self-funded institution.
Irukera said, “So, 2023 is the first year of being on our own. Now, you see that our personnel costs have hovered from N511 million to about N633 million year on year.

“By the time we end 2023, our personnel costs went up from about N600 million to about N2.5 billion. Essentially our personnel costs went up four times, when we got off the budget and paying our own salaries, meaning that it is not that we have even increased staff but we have increased salaries.
“And in 2023, our internally generated revenue is already N56 billion.”
He said, “And for me, what this demonstrate is the real possibility of our country. Our possibilities are absolutely limitless.
“We don’t approve a single product, we don’t take fees for registration of anything; we don’t take sponsorship or support from companies and we will not even let them buy tyres for our vehicles.

“All our revenue, any anywhere, go ask companies – they would tell you they don’t pay FCCPC any annual fees, there nothing like product registration and we don’t get money from the banks.”
Irukera said, “All the vast majority – 90 per cent of our revenue is from penalties.
“We believe the market should be unlocked. We believe businesses should be allowed to operate well. We believe they should thrive but we also believe in consequence.

“We believe that businesses must be held accountable. If you don’t hold people accountable, you cannot promote good behaviour.
“And that is why there is no case in court; there’s no report against us anywhere on whether we are oppressive or whether we have over-penalised.”
He said all penalties were mutual resolved by the parties involved.
He said, “As a matter of fact, there is no penalty that was not a mutual conclusion – meaning that the targets our work by themselves in each situation, reached out and said, we understand the problem, we’ve seen what we’ve done wrong: is there an administrative process where we can close this by penalty?

“What makes the market stable is holding the operators accountable. You can’t mistreat people and expect not yo be held accountable.”