11th March, 2014
Kazeem Ugbodaga
Manufacturers and sellers of fake products to consumers in Lagos State will now face a three-month jail term or pay a fine of N.5 million on first conviction by a court in Lagos.
This is the provision of the Lagos State Consumer Protection Agency Bill signed by Governor Babatunde Fashola into law on Monday at the State House, Ikeja, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria.
Section 37 (1) of the bill says that a person guilty of an offence under this law is liable on conviction to the following fines and penalties: (a) on a first conviction to a fine not exceeding N500,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months or both; and (b) on any subsequent conviction for the same offence or any other offence under this law, to a fine not exceeding N750,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or both.
Subsection (2) says that if after being convicted of an offence, the person referred to in subsection (1) continues to contravene the requirement or prohibition to which the offence relates, the person is guilty of a further offence on each day that the contravention continues and shall be liable to pay a fine of N20,000 for each day the offence is committed.
Signing the bill into law, Fashola stated that the purpose of the law was to protect consumers and to ensure that they got value for their money, adding that the piece of legislative intervention is also aimed at ensuring that goods that put on the market were fit for the purpose for which they were sold.
He explained that consumers must be able to seek relief or remedy against manufacturers who put goods that are substandard or those that were not fit for consumption into the market, adding that he expected that the law should tell consumers that they should not be helpless against erring manufacturers or vendors or service providers in Lagos because the government had deemed it proper to give support to them so that their voices could be heard.
“I think everybody benefits because it raises the service levels of providers, it raises compliance levels, it improves the quality and standards of goods that are put in the market and the manufacturers and service providers also now know that there is at least a minimum service level expectation that the market will expect,” he said.
Fashola explained that one of the selling points of Lagos State internationally and nationally was its large population and the consumption power that the population brought, adding that any government that is alive to its responsibility would seek to protect consumers who spend money in order to ensure that they get value for their money.
The Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr Ade Ipaiye said the new law repealed the Lagos State Consumer Protection Committee Law, Cap. L15,LLS 2003 and did not affect any right that a consumer might have under any other law.