Omnibus Bill on Business Facilitation: Presidency Renews call for submission of inputs

With the progress made by the Buhari administration in the global Ease of Doing Business ranking over the years, the Federal Government is now proposing a new bill that will solidify and institutionalize the reforms in the country’s business environment.

And to achieve this, the Presidency through the Enabling Business Environment Secretariat (EBES), is extending the deadline for contribution of inputs and submissions towards formalizing the bill.

EBES disclosed this in a statement released in Abuja last night. EBES is the secretariat responsible for driving the Federal Government’s Ease of Doing Business reforms in the past few years.

The secretariat said inputs to the proposed legislation known as Omnibus Bill on Business Facilitation, is to be sent to [email protected] on or before October 23, 2020.

According to EBES, “the proposed Omnibus Bill on Business Facilitation is poised to be a single encompassing Bill that addresses the institutionalization of several reforms within the Nigerian business climate, as well as amending several other legislations that can/have caused obstacles in the business climate.”

It said “the intention is to achieve three (3) things in broad strokes, Institutionalise some business climate reforms already achieved by the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC); Amend some provisions of the present legislative framework that have been identified by stakeholders as bottlenecks for the business climate reforms; and introduce new provisions that would accentuate business climate reforms (For instance, components of the Executive orders like One Government principle, Default Approval etc.).”

The secretariat also called on members of the business and legal communities, to take advantage of the window to make valuable contributions to the proposed bill on business facilitation which will serve as a legislative reform tool for business climate transformation in the country.

It said that all submissions must “identify the current provision in need of amendment; State your recommendation for amendment; and State what you hope the recommended amendment will achieve in practice.”

Recall that in July 2017, the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) approved the adoption of an Omnibus Bill as a legislative reform tool for business climate reform in Nigeria.

The Bill is now being reopened for review and further input because a number of the provisions earlier included in the draft have been addressed by the Financial Act 2019 and Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) 2020.