By Favour Nnabugwu

The European Union, EU, through United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) have partnered with  the  Consumer Protection Council, CPC, with the aim of raising the bar of consumer protection in the country.

The partnership, which is under  the  National Quality Infrastructure (NQI) Project, has capacity building of the Council’s staff, consumer awareness and quality training for businesses as its components.

Making this known  last week  at the opening of the training of the Council’s workers on the organisation’s enabling Act,  UNIDO’s Chief Technical Advisor on  the NQI, Mr. Charles Malata-Chirwa, said the capacity building is one of the programmes set out under the NQI “to  support the Council to achieve its mandate”.

Malata-Chirwa, representing the UNIDO’s Country Representative at the event held in Abuja, disclosed that  there are  five  major components of setting a quality policy and associated technical regulation  under the Quality Infrastructure Project, stating  that  while some of the programmes would address the supply side of the economy, the support to CPC is to enhance the demand side.

According to him, under the NQI, UNIDO, through the funding from EU, would  establish an accreditation body, that would be internationally-recognised,  set up  a  metrology institute, which would also be  internationally recognized and  “hopefully with the assistance and collaboration of the private sector, we will initiate conformity assessment body”, all of which, he said are on the  supply side.

The Chief  Technical Advisor stated that NQI identified CPC as  a key stakeholder and one of the beneficiaries of the five components  of  the  project  because of its relevance to the nation’s economic growth.

He added: “CPC deals with the demand side, the consumers. And we  cannot  have a quality infrastructure which only looks at the players in the market without also looking at the consumers. It is for that reason that we believe that this in-house training will enable us reach out to the consumers in a more structured and in a more effective way.

“Only if we know our strength and only if we know our  jurisdictions,  will  we  be able to engage the consumers so that they on their own  will  be able to demand from the industrialists   and other players  in the market,  the quality that is required. So through that process, we see the entire quality infrastructure in Nigeria becoming complete and will be able to compete at the international level”, he asserted, pointing out that  “all this is happening through the auspices of the European  Union, which  has funded the project with around 12 million Euro, about 4.3 billion Naira”.

Speaking earlier, CPC’s Director General, Mrs. Dupe Atoki, commended UNIDO for its decision to include the council in its NQI Project, noting that the organization made a good choice “that is going to give you proper deliverables that will support your investment in this project”.