Izuchukwu OkosiThe planned shutdown of airline operators of Nigeria amid rising price of jet fuel scheduled to begin on Monday (9 May 2022) has been shelved after talks were held in the past 72 hours.
There had been concerns that airlines would go ahead and charge customers for flights booked even after the planned strike took off.
Chief Executive Officer of Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) Tunde Irukera on Monday explained the role played by his Commission to ensure that the planned strike did not hold.
Irukera was guest of Arise News’ The Morning Show monitored by Prime Business Africa.
“There are two sides to this. We both regulate price and oversee competition. We recognised what the difficulties are,” Irukera assured.
“Aviation is a critical infrastructure and its so important a. D as such, we must ensure that every possible engagement to prevent shutdown of operations is encouraged and supported and that’s what we have done.
“We’ve been in discussions with airlines themselves, with the Civil Aviation Authority, with the fuel marketers, the National Assembly and all Consumer groups.
” So we’ve continued to participate to participate in those discussions to find a methodical way out. One of the things we’re so doing at FCCPC is to relax certain rules.
“For example, during the pandemic, certain competition rules that allowed certain providers of certain services to work were enforced.
“We had a similar situation in the Russia, Ukraine war and the production of jet fuel coming significantly from that region has been associated with what is going on.
“So we’re open to discussions where competitors come together to ensure that there’s supply chain that is predictable and the price is reasonable,”Irukera stated.
Responding on the question of a complaint portal for customers of airline that may have issues with the airliners, Irukera gave it simply as: FCCPC. gov.ng.
Izuchukwu Okosi is a Nigerian sports and entertainment journalist with two decades of experience in the media industry having begun his media journey in 2002 as an intern at Mundial Sports International (MSI) and Africa Independent Television (AIT), owners of Daar Communications Plc.
In October 2004, Okosi joined Complete Communications Limited, publishers of Complete Sports newspaper and Complete Football magazine as a reporter and later script writer for the Complete Sports studio.
He worked there for 13 years until October 2017.
Okosi also worked various times as Correspondent, Content creator and Editor at Sports Market International Magazine, Opera News, All Nigeria Soccer Media and Iconic Media Watch.
He also undertook freelance writing gigs for some local and international organizations.
Okosi is a member of the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN), Association of Movie Producers (AMP), Association of Voiceover Artistes of Nigeria (AVOA), Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) and Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).
He has been part of cast in some Nollywood movies and radio dramas including Blood Money 2, Scores To Settle, Dead End 2, Another Campus Tale and Battle Line.
Aside mainstream media and the entertainment industry, he has interests in scouting/unearthing of talents in the sports and creative sectors, exports business and property development.
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