FG parley stakeholders to strengthen ease of doing business

Ahead of release of the report of ease of doing business (EoDB) in second quarter of 2022, the Federal Government on Wednesday in Abuja hosted stakeholders from the 36 states of the federation to brainstorm and review gains of the policy so far.

The Special Adviser to the President, Ease of Doing Business and Secretary, Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC), Dr. Jumoke Oduwole, said at the two-day workshop tagged: ‘Technical Deep Dive’, which began on Wednesday, that this would afford participants the opportunity to compare notes, talk and peer learn.

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She said that participants comprised reform champions from all the states of the federation and that the exercise is part of preparations ahead the release of the new edition of the ease of doing business report billed to be made public in second quarter of 2022.

“The sub national ease of doing business has been ongoing since 2017 where the National Executive Council (NEC) approved the collaboration with the PEBEC replicating the sub national ease of doing business at the sub national levels.

“What that means is that each state has council, in some states it is chaired by the governor, like Nasarawa, Sokoto, in some states it is chaired by the deputy governor, like Kaduna state, sometimes it is chaired by the Secretary to the government and the Head of Service.

“Each state has a reform champion, and in here, in this technical deep dive, is the reform champions from all the states partnering with their colleagues at the federal level to talk about how we can improve the business climate in Nigeria.

“As you know, no business is domiciled at the federal government, every business has their location in one of the states’ or the FCT. So, with this collaboration we are making sure that all the issues MSMEs have talked about in the last six years are replicated across states. So, the PEBEC on its own has implemented over 160 reforms over the last six years,”

Oduwole said.

On his part, the Executive Secretary, Kaduna Investment Promotion Agency (KADIPA), Khalil Nur Khalil, said that his state has done a lot of reforms but is still working on a platform to make monitoring the impacts of the reforms easy and timely.

He said, “Kaduna state has done quite a lot in terms of reforms on the easy of doing business. The challenge is to actually have a dashboard where we are monitoring these reforms so that we can sustain them.”