Yesterday, Nigeria moved
24 places to 145 in the Doing Business report issued by the
World Bank. It was also named among the top 10 reformers in the world alongside
India, Thailand, Malawi, and others.
The World Bank Doing
Business project provides objective measures of business regulations
and their enforcement across 190 economies worldwide.
The improvement in
global doing business ranking is a big step in our march towards creating an
enabling environment for businesses and a validation of the hard work put in by
the Enabling Business Environment Secretariat (EBES), the reform actualizing
agency of the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) which
is chaired by Vice President ‘Yemi Osinbajo, with me as Vice Chairman.
The World Bank report
indicates that Nigeria has made significant progress in five reforms namely
starting a business, dealing with construction permits, registering property,
getting credit and paying taxes.
Reforms aimed at
reducing the complexities, time, and cost of regulatory processes in the area
of starting a business and getting credit were implemented while the ones on
trading across borders and others are firmly being worked on.
More specifically, Doing
Business finds that Nigeria implemented substantive changes in the
local regulatory framework in the following areas in 2016/17:
• Nigeria made starting
a business faster by allowing electronic stamping of registration documents.
This reform applies to both Kano and Lagos.
• Nigeria (Kano)
increased transparency in obtaining a construction permit by publishing all
relevant regulations, fee schedules and pre-application requirements online.
Nigeria (Lagos) made it easier to obtain construction permits by streamlining
the permitting process and increased transparency by publishing all relevant
regulations, fee schedules and pre-application requirements online.
• Nigeria (Kano) made
transferring property more transparent by publishing the list of documents, fee
schedules and service standards for property transactions. Nigeria (Lagos) made
transferring property easier and more transparent by removing the sworn
affidavit for certified copies of land ownership records, introducing a
specific and independent complaint mechanism and by publishing statistics on
land transfers.
• Nigeria improved
access to credit information by guaranteeing borrowers the legal right to
inspect their credit data from the credit bureau and by starting to provide
credit scores to banks, financial institutions and borrowers. Nigeria also
strengthened access to credit by adopting a new law on secured transactions and
establishing a modern collateral registry. These changes apply to both Kano and
Lagos.
• Nigeria made paying
taxes easier by introducing new channels for payment of taxes and mandating
taxpayers to file tax returns at the nearest Federal Inland Revenue Service
(FIRS) office. This reform applies to both Kano and Lagos.
With the forgoing, it is
apparent that a lot is being done to remove all the bottlenecks hampering the
ease of doing business in Nigeria, but more needs to be done. With the second
phase of the National Action Plan (NAP 2.0) currently being implemented, we
expect further improvements in our global ease of doing business ranking.
We intend to do more in
sensitizing stakeholders — governments, agencies, entrepreneurs, regulators,
foreign investors, and more — on the progress of our work in relation to how it
affects their operations.
I strongly believe it is
through testing and retooling our reform initiatives that we will get the best
and most efficient way to get business done according to global standards.
I appreciate everyone
who has supported the drive of government to achieve this outstanding milestone
which many have described as “impressive”, and the EBES for staying true to the
vision of creating an enabling business environment in the service of our
nation and the benefit of its people.
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