Osinbajo Heads Presidential Initiative to Improve Business Environment

The federal government has set up a presidential-level, inter-ministerial initiative to address Nigeria’s consistently poor performance on various Global Competitiveness and Ease of Doing Business Indices, THISDAY has learnt.

The initiative, being championed by the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment (MITI), is headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo as chairman and has Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr. Okey Enelamah, as vice chairman. Baring last-minute change of mind, it would be unveiled this month.

A presidency source, who revealed this to THISDAY noted that the initiative would have substantial private sector input and leadership, with the government supplying the needed political will and leadership, and will tackle specific challenges inhibiting industrialisation, domestic and cross-border trade, and local and foreign investment.
Nigeria is currently ranked 169 out of 189 countries, on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business rankings. However, the federal government’s vision, THISDAY gathered, is to rise into the top 100 by 2020“We’re looking keenly at the example of Kenya, which climbed 21 places on the rankings between 2014 and 2015, simply by focusing on a number of critical reforms ranging from access to electricity and access to finance for businesses, to property registration procedures. Between 2013 and 2014 Kenya actually slipped eight places, before pulling off the remarkable feat of improving from 129 to 108 the following year.

“Nigeria has spent long enough time talking about creating an enabling environment, now it’s time to make it happen, like many other countries have done in recent years. Rwanda is another inspiring African story; the second-highest ranked African country, after Mauritius, and currently more than 100 places ahead of Nigeria,” the source said.
Analysts at Renaissance Capital have proffered ways by which the country can jump to within 100 best countries to do business .

The World Bank Ease of Doing Business index identified major drawbacks to doing business in the country as sloppy taxation system, getting electricity, registering property and bottlenecks to starting business; and advocated reforms in critical sectors of the economy.

To arrive at its conclusions, the analysts noted that it constructed two scenarios for improvement, which show where the country could rank if it implements practices that were found in other countries including Kenya, Ghana, Rwanda and Zambia. The note showed that adopting the best case scenario would see the country jump to 71st, and 104th under the second case scenario.