Nigerian govt vows to shut down illegal money lenders

The joint committee tackling the violation of consumer rights in the money lending industry will shut down illegal businesses at the commencement of its enforcement, the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) says.

Babatunde Irukera, the Chief Executive Officer of FCCPC, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Sunday that the enforcement would commence soon.

NAN reports that the joint committee is made up of representatives from FCCPC, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Other agencies involved in the committee are the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).

Mr Irukera said that the committee would also be writing interim regulations which money lending companies must comply with.

“The joint committee is meeting and agreeing on how to proceed but I can say that two of the entities of the joint committee will be going on the field and doing enforcement work now, very shortly.

“They will be closing down businesses and engaging App stores to shut down certain applications that are infringing and abusive.

“We are also going to be writing interim regulations and some basic information for all these money lenders to provide information so that people will know who they are.

“Some of them are just Apps that we do not even know who the promoters are.

“So we are going to provide certain frameworks for them to comply with before doing business,” he explained.

On the increasing number of consumer complaints about services by insurance companies, Mr Irukera said that the commission was progressing in their Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM).

According to him, we anticipate that as we conclude that MoU early next year, we will have more industry-wide interventions in that space.

“We get a lot more complaints about the insured who have paid their premium and are not been settled and so, we are engaging NAICOM on that,” he said.