7th August, 2018
The Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) said on Monday that it would continue to accelerate its efforts to ensure better public service delivery and improved business environment for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME), Dr. Jumoke Oduwole, PEBEC Secretary and Senior Special Assistant to the President on Industry, Trade and Investment, said.
Oduwole said this during the presentation of the “2018 Making Business Work Report” at PEBEC meeting, according to a statement by Mr. Bisi Daniels, Strategy and Communications Adviser, to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr Okechukwu Enelamah.
”Nigeria must improve its ranking by 45 places in the World Bank Ease of Doing Business Index over the next two years to achieve its goal of attaining the top 100 by 2020″, Oduwole said.
“Such an ambitious goal requires accelerated and focused execution of Government Executive Order and National Action Plans (NAP).
“It is clear that Nigeria must now intensify its reforms; and the PEBEC will continue to work closely with the public and private sectors to institutionalize its reforms, cascade them to the state level, refine and improve the business environment,” she said.
Oduwole said that according to the “2018 Making Business Work Report,” the current reform cycle is focused on three pillars to accelerate and expand the impact of completed reforms.
One of the pillars is deepening existing reforms through the completion of pending initiatives and ensuring implementation of completed reforms launched in 2017, including communication and consequence management;
Others are making the reforms sustainable; through several measures being put in place to ensure progress is sustainable, and providing support reforms with a robust operating model to accelerate change and build capacity within MDAs.
Oduwole said: “Nigeria has come a long way over the past two years, bouncing back from significant macroeconomic distress, and is on the way to becoming a textbook example of how an African country can turn its business.”
She added that as part of its implementation strategy, PEBEC was building the capacity of the MDAs to deliver and strengthen them for the long-term and to sustain the improvements on an on-going basis.
Oduwole added that the council was also fostering cooperation between the MDAs and across States, National Assembly and the private sector to ensure effective coordination between all the relevant to ensure proper planning to eliminate the critical binding constraints.
According to her, in the second half of 2018 and into 2019, the PEBEC will focus primarily on regulators, an Omnibus Bill on business facilitation, and consolidating gains for the economy through the deepening of the subnational Ease of Doing Business project.
She said that PEBEC, chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, was inaugurated in July 2016 as the administration’s flagship initiative to reform the business environment, attract investment and diversify the economy to reduce the nation’s reliance on oil.
According to her, the PEBEC’s principal goal is to make it easier for MSMEs to do business, grow and contribute to sustainable economic activity, and provide the jobs.
“One of the key indicators of success will be Nigeria’s performance on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business indicators, which provide a global snapshot of a country’s business environment in comparison to its peers.
“A report on an independent impact assessment of PEBEC Reforms from January 2017 to May 2018 released by Financial Derivative Company Limited in May 2018 shows the impact of some of the council’s reforms.
“There has been 26 percent reduction in the cost of registering a business from N19,500 to N15, 500.
“Time savings of over 288 hours to register a business, from 14 days to a maximum of 2 days; and reduction in time taken to make payment from an average of seven days to less than a day, among others, ” he said.