CPC, AFBTE to Develop Acceptable Compensation Code for Aggrieved Consumers

The Consumer Protection Council (CPC) and the Association of Food, Beverage and Tobacco Employers (AFBTE), have in a move to provide succour to aggrieved consumers of beverages and food, agreed to raise a technical committee to develop a mutually acceptable compensation code to address consumer abuse in the sector.

The decision to set up the technical committee was taken during a courtesy call of the association on the new Director General of CPC, Mr. Tunde Irukera, at the Council’s headquarters in Abuja.

Irukera, while commenting on the decision, observed that the code would modify the attitude and responses of the 100 industries that are members of the association to complaints of aggrieved consumers in the sector.

He hinted that “the reality is that we have an aggressive consumer protection agency which frankly we must have, regardless of whatever approach one must take to protect the consumer and we have a responsibility to protect the consumer, to the extent of coming up with an approach that is in the interest of those consumers.

“So having to use a compensation policy as an example, if a consumer were to complain about a product, claiming that it made him ill, we could obviously come together and work with an acceptable methodology that would be fairer and more predictable across the board, rather than when a complaint occurs and gets out of hand... if we work together, we can come up with something that would be acceptable across the board and you can go and percolate it as a kind of voluntary guide, and whoever doesn’t want to abide by it, that’s okay, but at least we should have something that we can work with. And in that regard we will be happy to work with you on mutually acceptable implementations and come up with key issues in respect to consumer protection” he said.

The CPC boss said the Council would be willing to collaborate effectively with the association because of its widespread influence in almost every home.

“I have found that professional and trade associations like this, when they are very strong, are perhaps the best partners because you can affect consumers far more when you come to some understanding with the association and they go back to enforce it within themselves than dealing with each member, ” he noted.

Irukera while asserting that he would always respect individual brands and their prerogative to protect themselves, emphasised that “integrity of your brand is also in the interest of Consumer Protection Council because anything that affects the integrity of your brand also affects consumer confidence.

“Certainly, one thing the Council will want to promote is consumer confidence. We want consumers to be confident of choices they make and the products they consume. It will be helpful also when there are issues to work on to recognise that we are on the same page with respect to brand confidence. That flows from the point I want to make with respect to fake products, we can approach that in a collaborative way in the sense that we would like to protect the integrity of your brand so that we are sure consumers are getting the right products”, he added.