By MICHAEL EBOH & OLAYEMI FOFAH
The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has lamented the high-handedness of regulatory authorities in Nigeria, especially as regards to investors and businesses in the country.

Specifically, the LCCI is concerned about the unwarranted sealing of premises of businesses by regulatory authorities.

LCCI, in a statement, signed by Muda Yusuf, Director General, LCCI, kicked against the actions of operatives of the National Lottery Regulatory Commission (NLRC) who recently sealed the premises of multinational company and member of the Lagos Chamber in some locations in the country, arresting and detaining the officials of the company, with the support of the police.

According to Yusuf, LCCI is concerned about the unfriendly disposition of many regulatory agencies towards investors in the economy.

He called on the federal government to immediately reduce the burden imposed on businesses by the actions of the regulatory agencies by ensuring that it rationalize their number and streamline the activities of the multitude of regulatory agencies, especially as some of them have overlapping mandates.

He urged the federal government to immediately put in place the necessary framework to exercise effective oversight over the regulatory agencies in the economy to curb their overbearing tendencies.

According to him, governments at all levels should adequately fund these agencies as many of them currently depend on fees and fines collected from investors to run their operations.

“This creates the problem of imposition of prohibitive fees and charges on businesses.  The private sector has a statutory obligation to pay tax; but not the responsibility to fund regulatory agencies,” Yusuf stated.

He said the NLRC action was based on the claim that the sales promotional activities by the companies are tantamount to lottery and therefore required statutory permits and payments.

Yusuf contended that after carefully reviewing the situation, LCCI concluded that the “Mandate of the NLRC is to regulate the Business of lottery and not the business of manufacturing or production. In a typical lottery transaction, a lottery ticket is purchased for the sole objective of winning a prize.  This is clearly not the case in this instance and other promotional activities of manufacturers.

“That the Consumer Protection Council is already exercising oversight on promotional activities that involves raffles by companies to ensure the integrity of such exercise.”

He said the federal government should urgently restrain the NLRC from further tormenting and disrupting the activities of businesses.”