CONSUMERS’ COMPLAINT RESOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE WITH THE SIGNING OF MoU BETWEEN NERC AND FCCPC

Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Agency (NERC), has signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Federal Competition Consumer and Protection Commission (FCCPC) to improve complaint resolutions in the power sector.
This was disclosed during the MoU signing ceremony held in NERC’s office, Abuja on Thursday.

In his remarks, The Chairman/Chief Executive of NERC, Engr. Garba Sanusi said the MoU will consolidate the year long collaborative relationships existing between NERC and FCCPC toward reducing consumers complaints in the power industry.

Accordingly to Sanusi, “We have in the last two years worked collaboratively, worked very closely with the FCCPC in the area of consumer protection. So what we can see in signing of the MoU has been to consolidate this area of cooperation between the two agencies. This is so that we do not have two government agencies and regulators working against each other.

There are merits in the collaboration and the merits in the synergy that can be derived from our collaboration.” He further noted that all the problem they are having is tied to the legacy issues that the commission has been battling with.

On his part, the Executive Vice Chairman/CEO, FCCPC, Mr Babatunde Irureka said that the MoU will be silver-lining to ending consumer dissatisfaction.”

He said, “What I think is that consumers can expect at a minimum, that we have got two regulators in the space, we are truly committed to resolving complaints, but beyond resolving their complaints, modifying the nature of business in that space, to a point where dissatisfaction is reduced.”

He further stated that the mutual suspicion between regulators will come to an end with the signing of the MoU and will also signify a mutual prioritisation to move things together.

He said: “We have quite a bfew history of collaboration and a legacy of poor performance by public utilities of which NERC and FCCPC are blamed for”.
NERC’s commissioner, Consumer Affairs, Aisha Mahmud, and Executive Vice Chairman/Commissioner Marketing Competition and Rates, Musilu Oseni further stressed on the significance of the MoU in their respective remarks.