” I am a protector of consumers, I have a mandate, it’s not even a question or discretion”
The Director General Consumer Protection Council, CPC, Mr. Babatunde Irukera says the council is poised to ensuring the rights of the consumer is protected in all the sectors of the economy.
Mr. Irukera who stated this at a news conference in Lagos said, he has the mandate to protect the consumer rights and would do that to the latter.
He noted that it’s activities in the aviation sector would be handled with all sense of responsibilities as the complaints of passengers on delays, cancellations and other areas where services were in shortfall was becoming a worrisome trend.
According to him, irrespective of the presence of a directorate in the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority NCAA that handles passengers complaints, the council would do its duties to customers satisfaction.
He emphasized, carrying out its duties in the industry would not amount to usurping any agency’s position.
“I don’t see where the usurping is at all, I am a protector of consumers, I have a mandate, it’s not even a question or discretion, I have a mandate and am going to fulfill that mandate and whatever it takes to fulfill that mandate including this collaboration I will”.
“You are talking about a department of an agency, I am speaking of an agency of it own and so there is no usurping going on”, he added.
Mr. Irukera noted that the goal of government in setting up the council was to ensure that customer rights were protected and ensuring air travellers complaints were addressed does not contravene ICAO standards.
“Secondly, within ICAO standards and recommended practices, there is nothing absolutely no conflict in any law in Nigeria with ICAO recommended practices or ICAO standards, there is nothing in the Consumer Protection Council Act that creates a conflict and there is nothing that the CPC is doing or intends to do with respect to consumer protection that conflicts with ICAO standards and recommended practices”.
He emphasized that the era of limiting the channels for filing complaints to the NCAA Mann channels itself was a disservice to consumers, adding that more channels should be created for passengers to lay complaints.
According to him, his core mandate was to protect the consumer rights, address their complaints to boost their confidence in the sector, encourage and demand the relevant players, service providers, travel agents, airport authorities to provide better consumer services.
“I think limiting the channels for filing complaints to NCAA man channels itself is a disservice to consumers, I think every available I mean we are talking about consumers here and they are suppose to be the king we now want to place a burden on them to enforce their rights that they must go to a certain location or person? We have an obligation to make sure that as many possible channels as possible for them to express but for a matter of fact for a failed complaint resolution system, the complaints should ordinarily automatically go to service providers”.
The CPC boss noted that last year, the aviation industry came third in the number of complaints received by the council which bordered on delays, cancellation of flights and other services where service failure were recorded.
“We we wrote the passenger bill of rights, I was part and parcel of it, when we wrote it, we say NCAA enforce this thing, make sure that all airlines print, this thing, put it in their offices, check- in and on their website, this is the way to educate people of their rights but it hasn’t been done. So if somebody now take their own resources to go and print it and give it to people, ultimately the whole purpose of this same thing is so that this same people we know about it”.
“looking from the last report the complaints we have received have gone up easily, I will say 40%, our resolution rates has gone up to, we have resolved well up to 78% within same reporting period , the resolution will be ultimately more than 78% but within the reporting period as at the time you start and end a reporting period we at 78%, our benchmark is to be able to resolve at least 96% of complaints within any reporting period, he added.
Mr. Irukera said efforts were on to ensure all complaints were captured and responded to within 48 hours as the council was set to deploy an automation system for real time data.
He explained that the CPC was leveraging technology to successfully respond to consumers who send complaints to its portal within 24 hours and resolve them between 3-4 days depending on how contentious the issue was.
“Where we are going, those response will be far more quicker, in a matter of fact, we are trying to make sure that, if you file your complaints electronically, on the same day in less than 24 hours you get your initial response and we will set it up in such a way that there will be a portal where you can follow what is happening, you can literally pick your ticket number, go online and see exactly what is happening, if its still pending or a decision has been made and you didn’t get it or whatever the case maybe, that’s where we are going, we are leveraging on technology as possible as we can”.
