Commentary: Fashioning Out Easier Ways Of Doing Business In Nigeria

WRITTEN BY NJIDE EZEONYEJIAKU
The Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC), launched in July, 2016 by President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to reform the business environment and subsequently draw investments to Nigeria, reawakened different states in Nigeria to seek ways to make the business environment easier. Ease Of Doing Business (EoDB) is simply a change or reforms in the way business is conducted anywhere. It entails the provision of enabling environment for business operators to thrive.
The World Bank 2018 global Ease of Doing Business report ranked Nigeria one hundred and forty-fifth among 190 economies in the world. Also, the sub-national report on the 36 States and Abuja, according to the World Bank shows that Kaduna, Enugu, Abia, Lagos and Anambra States came tops among others in the four key indicators of global Ease of Doing Business reforms, namely: Starting of a business; Dealing with construction permits; Registering property; and Enforcing contracts. Furthermore, 29 states, according to that report, have already implemented 43 reforms that aided the ease of doing business in their states, in line with the global best practices.
It is against this back drop that the South East Governor’s Forum rose to the challenge of keying into the Federal Government’s Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council initiative to accelerate actions that can engender sustainable ways of entrenching a better, easier and faster ways of doing business through a peer learning engagement of critical stakeholders.
Participants, drawn from government circle, organized private sector, civil society organizations and the media in the five states of the South East gathered in Awka, Anambra state recently for the 2-day engagement on the theme: “Implications of the 2018 World Bank Sub-National Ease of Doing Business Report for South East states”.
The basic goal of the meeting was to fashion out more actionable ways of improving the ease of doing business in the South East region. The initiative also stemmed from the desire of the governor.