The Centre for Management Development (CMD) has said that any individual who operates a training consultancy in any sector of the economy, without accreditation, is liable to six months of imprisonment or a fine of N250,000 or both.
Modinat Olusoji, Acting Director-General (D-G of CMD ), revealed this to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recently in Abuja. She said unaccredited corporate entities engaging in management development or training are equally liable.
“They are. in their case, liable to a fine of N1 million,” she stressed.
Olusoji said the newly amended Establishment Act of the Centre makes provision for these sanctions and empowers the body to enforce the law.
Two bodies regulating training, the CMD and the Nigerian Council for Management Development (NCMD) were established in 1973. They are to regulate management consultancy training through the accreditation and registration of management trainers, training firms and institutions.
According to the D-G, the 1973 Establishment Act was amended in 2022 and the two bodies were statutorily empowered to sanction unaccredited trainers and firms.
Olusoji said that the Centre is putting machinery in place for the implementation of the amended Act on sanctioning unaccredited management training centres in the country.
She said the Centre was also planning an extensive campaign to sensitize stakeholders on this development. Her words, “We are using every form of advocacy including our accredited trainers to be our ambassadors wherever they go. We are also trying to put other activities in place to ensure that those unaccredited ones report for accreditation because we do not want to just go in the way of enforcing sanctions.
“We want to educate them on the consequences so that they can voluntarily come forward to be accredited”, the acting DG said.
Olusoji also added, “Another thing we have done is to educate Nigerians on the need to patronize only accredited trainers and management consultants.
“If you want to know whether a firm is accredited or not, just ask for their accreditation number or go to our website and carry out a check.
The D-G underscored the need for standardisation in management training and urged stakeholders to work together to sanitize the environment and ensure that investment in the sector yields satisfactory results.
She added that the Centre’s mandates were derived from the need for human capacity development provision of services in the area of management training, research, consultancy and education. This, she said would ensure improvement of performance and productivity in all sections of the economy.
Brand Communicator, spoke to some trainers and management consultants in the Marketing Communications industry in Lagos, and virtually all claimed they were unaware of this development.
One of the experts, Dr. Abiodun Ajiborode, Founder and Chief Consultant of Brand Management Academy stated emphatically that he was not aware of the Act empowering this. His words, “I am not aware of this. And if I will accept this, let me see the Act supporting their assertion”.
From all indications, it seems CMD and NCMD will need to do more to enlighten more people across the country.