By Miriam Humbe
The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) generated over N56 billion in the year 2023.
Executive Vice Chairman of FCCPC, Mr Babatunde Irukera said this on Thursday at a strategic media engagement in Abuja.
Themed: “Reflections on the Road So Far, and Road Ahead”, the EVC said that 90 percent of the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) was obtained through payment of penalties by defaulting companies in the country.
He said that the FCCPC remitted N22.4billion to the federal government.
The Executive Vice Chairman was appointed at the helm of affairs in the FCCPC, then known as Consumer Protection Council, (CPC) in 2017 and has turned the fortunes of the Commission to a self funding Agency.
He stressed the need for accountability to achieve positive results.
Irukera said: “We believe that businesses must be held accountable. If you don’t hold people accountable, you cannot promote good behaviour.”
This is what the EVC said concerning revenue generation and enforcement in the Commission:
“In 2023, our internally generated revenue is already N56bn and we have remitted to the government N22.4 billion and for me what this demonstrates is the real possibility for our country. Our possibilities are absolutely limitless.
“We don’t approve a single product, we don’t take fees for registration of anything nor support or sponsorship from companies.
“All our revenue, at least 90 percent is from penalties. We believe that the market should be unlocked and business should be allowed to operate well and should thrive.
“But we also believe in consequence and businesses must be held accountable, if we don’t hold people accountable, we can’t promote good behavior.
“Prior to 2017, the FCCPC had a budget of N1bn from the Federal Government, of this amount, N511 million was personal cost and salaries of 240 employees at the time.
“What was released was N796 million. Our internally generated revenue was N154 million.
“In 2018, the agency had a huge jump in the budget from the treasury and it got a budget of N3.3 billion and that is largest, of which N2.1 billion was released.
“By 2019, the budget of the agency went back from N3.3bn down to N1.3 billion. Out of that, 518 million was personnel cost.
“In that year, when we started the reforms, the agency made a total Internally generated revenue of N377 million, which was unprecedented as the highest at the time. But we were growing the agency as best as we could.
“In 2020 the government budgeted deeper to N887 million of which N582 million was for salaries and personnel cost. The agency was able to make approximately what the government gave by itself and the agency revenue that year was N864 million.
“By 2021, the government approved a budget of N1.8 billion for the agency but the agency generated by itself N4 billion and gave to the government N1.6 billion”.
“In 2022, the government budgeted N1.3 billion for the agency and N633 million was personal cost but the Agency didn’t touch a single kobo of the operational and capital expense.
“The only thing the government paid that year was salaries. In that year, the agency made N5.2 billion and remitted to the government N2.6 billion.
“By this time, we had indicated to go out of the budget because we could take care of ourselves, we went to the government and got approval to leave the treasury and so in December 2022, the government said starting from January 2023, we would be taken off the budget.
“2023 is our first year of being on our own and now our personnel cost has hovered from N633 million to about N2.5 billion. Essentially, our personnel cost went up times four. We didn’t increase number of staff but salaries was improved”.
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