The Lagos State House of Assembly is studying a proposed law to protect the interest of residents of the state in their roles as purchasers and consumers of product.
To this end, the members held a public hearing on Wednesday the bill for a law to establish the consumer protection agency, provide for the protection of the interest of consumers, settlement of consumer disputes and for connected purposes.
The agency’s proposed objectives and functions includes: to promote and protect the rights of the consumers which includes but not limited to the right to be protected against marketing of goods and services considered hazardous to life.
The bill which had lingered since the sixth session of the state Assembly further gives the agency power to act as a regulator in the sense of possessing the right to hear complaints and be informed about the quality, quantity, potency, purity, standard and price of goods and services.
The proposed law believes such information would help to protect the consumers in the state against unfair trade practices by manufacturers of these products or commodities.
The agency will possess the right to seek redress against unfair trade practices or unscrupulous exploitation of consumers and the right to consumer education and awareness.
The agency is to seek this redress on behalf of consumers, through negotiation, mediation and conciliation and advise the state government on consumer protection policies.
Also, the agency is to seek ways and means of “removing or eliminating from the market hazardous products and causing offenders to replace such products with safer products; initiate investigations in its own name whether upon the receipt of complaint or not; publish from time to time the list of products, the consumption and sale of which have been banned, withdrawn, restricted or not approved by the appropriate Federal or State Government agencies.”
Further functions of the agency include to encourage trade industry and professional associations to develop and enforce in their various fields, quality standards designed to safeguard the interest of consumers and cause quality tests to be conducted on a consumer product where necessary.
The event witnessed the high attendance by stakeholders including the lawmakers, officials of the executive arm of the state government, producers of commodities, analysts and residents of the state.
The Deputy Speaker, Taiwo Kolawole, who spoke on behalf of Rt. Hon. Adeyemi Ikuforiji, the Speaker of the House, said the House had since made it a policy to include stakeholders and residents in the process of passing bills into law since the lawmakers are representatives of the people.
Mr. Kolawole Taiwo said the bill, a private member bill sponsored by the Speaker, was very important to the House as it would positively affect the people of the state.
According to the Deputy Speaker, “if we don’t protect the consumer, we will be exposing them to various dangers. But for the love of Lagosians that the Speaker has at heart, he decided to introduce the bill.
“So we are expecting your contributions and we want to assure you that your contributions will form the basis of this bill,” he said.
While some of the stakeholders spoke glowingly of the bill, some others pointed out loopholes in the bill advising that those areas should be addressed.
Ifeoma Okwosa, a representative of the Institute of Chartered Accountant of Nigeria (ICAN), advised that the proposed agency should not be allowed to accept gifts as stated by Section 45 of the bill stressing that officials of the agency are compromised, they would bias and less effective.
Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Wale Raji, on his part, said the Ministry has a committee on consumer protection in place, with the Commissioner as the Chairman saying the committee had handled a lot of complaints.”
Raji complained about Section 9 of the bill, which makes provision for the establishment and composition of consumer protection committees in local governments, saying it will be cumbersome and expensive to run.
