The Federal Government has inaugurated consumer complaints platform for Information Technology products and services in the country.

Inaugurating the platform in Abuja Thursday, the Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Prof Cleopas Angaye, said the platform was inaugurated to discourage sales of pirated IT products and services.

According to Prof Angaye, the country cannot develop technologically if the markets are flooded with pirated and substandard IT products.

He said: "There are many substandard IT products in the market" and the complaints platform is aimed at reducing this drastically."

The NITDA DG stated that the current computing environments are complex and sharing resources between applications could only be seamless if there are efficient IT standards.

"The IT complaints platform would allow users of IT facilities to report inferior or sub-standard products. It would also discourage consumers from patronizing pirated products and also promote the development of efficient IT products in the country", he said.

In his presentation at the event, the Director General of Standards Organization of Nigeria (SON), Joseph Odumodu said Nigerian IT industry would have been world class but for pirated and substandard products sellers.

The DG who was represented by an official of the agency, Engr Perseer Lanem, said the agency is stepping up efforts to rid the country of pirated and substandard IT products.

He commended NITDA for establishing the IT complaints platform, saying that it would go a long way in complementing SON's work.