The Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC), during its sixth meeting, last week Tuesday, 21 February 2017, unveiled a 60-day national action plan for the ease of doing business in Nigeria. The council revealed that this was done with the intention of aiding businesses across the country and is also expected to improve Nigeria’s ranking in the World Bank’s Doing Business Index 2018.
During the meeting, the Council approved a national action plan to be implemented across its three priority areas – Entry and Exit of goods; Entry and Exit of people and Government Transparency and Procurement – over the next 60 days to deliver tangible changes for SMEs in Nigeria.
Acting President Yemi Osinbajo, urged the National Assembly, to come up with an enabling legislation that would facilitate ease of doing business in the country within the timeframe.
Specifically, PEBEC is to work with the legislature to pass vital bills like the National Collateral Registry Bill and the Credit Bureau Services Bill to allow the SMEs access credit with ease. Also, the Government is understudying the Georgian Government to tap from its experience with a view to turning the business climate around nationwide.
This initiative is to be implemented by the Enabling Business Environment Secretariat (EBES) which became operational in October 2016 with Dr. Jumoke Oduwole, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Industry, Trade and Investment (OVP) as its coordinator.
A statement issued at the end of the meeting indicated that one of the reforms to be implemented to ease the process of starting a business is the upgrade of the CAC online portal to ensure document upload capabilities that will make it possible for new businesses to be registered online from start to finish without having to visit the CAC office.
It also disclosed that work is ongoing to streamline the number of agencies operating at the nation’s ports to only six. Council also listened to updates on the proposed Single Window Initiative at the ports which is expected to become operational by Q4 2017.
This move by the Federal Government has been lauded by many stakeholders as a step in the right direction though some critics have argued that the duration is too short and could have been extended to 6 months to enable wider dissemination of information and a longer course of action. We keep our fingers crossed as we wait to see what follows in the coming days.