The industry’s apex regulatory body, in a statement, signed
by its Director-General, Dr Lekan Fadolapo, stated that the threat had become
imperative since it was becoming obvious that the FMCG company was not in a
hurry to pay the more than one-year-old debt.
It further stated that Hayat Kimya offices had ignored every
correspondence from Mainsail and, also failed to liquidate the outstanding
debt.
According to the statement, the company’s head office in
Turkey had hired the media independent agency to coordinate media and
placement, for 12 months, for its subsidiary Hayat Kimya Nigeria Ltd.
The mainsail was later disengaged, by the company, in
November 2021, on the allegation of fraud in executing a media contract in
connivance with an unnamed media monitoring service provider, without
offsetting the outstanding debt of N481, 349,845.45.
While calling on the company to offset the outstanding debt
within seven days, the regulatory body threatened to, among other sanctions,
revoke all approvals to advertise, issued to it until the issue is resolved.
“Sometime in June 2021, Hayat Kimya alleged that a
whistle-blower sent information that Mainsail was fraudulent in executing a
media contract in connivance with a media monitoring service provider.
“Hayat Kimya Head Office instituted investigation after the
allegation into the matter without the knowledge or involvement of its Nigeria
office.
“Notwithstanding the whistle-blowing, Hayat Kimya continued
to conduct business with Mainsail until sometime in September 2021.
“Hayat Kimya disengaged Mainsail in November 2021, the outstanding
invoice at the time was N481,349,584.45 (Four Hundred and Eighty-One Million,
Three Hundred and Forty-Nine Thousand, Eight Hundred and Forty-Five Naira,
Forty-Five Kobo only).
“Hayat Kimya did not inform the management of Mainsail of
the whistle-blowing up until the meeting called by the advertising industry
regulator, the APCON, now ARCON,” ARCON stated.
While describing the company’s continued indebtedness as a
sad example of one of the root causes of decadence in the nation’s advertising,
the apex regulatory body noted that the action of the company had led to the
loss of jobs and disruption in the nation’s advertising ecosystem in particular
and the economy in general.