Follow Us on Google
Bimbola Oyesola with agency report
The Federal Government’s reforms on ease-of-doing business maybe yielding results afterall as Nigeria has climbed 15 steps to rank 131, out of 190 countries, on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business
The Bretton Wood institution , in releasing its Doing Business 2020 Report yesterday , said:
“Nigeria conducted reforms impacting six indicators, including making the enforcement of contracts easier, which placed the 200-million-person economy among the world’s top improvers. Only two sub-Saharan African economies rank in the top 50 on the ease of doing business rankings while most of the bottom 20 economies in the global rankings are from the region.
“Compared to other parts of the world, sub-Saharan Africa still underperforms in several areas. In getting electricity, for example, businesses must pay more than 3,100 per cent per cent of income per capita to connect to the grid, compared to just over 400 per cent in the Middle East and North Africa or 272 per cent per cent in Europe and Central Asia.
“When it comes to trading across borders and paying taxes, businesses spend about 96 hours to comply with documentary requirements to import, versus 3.4 hours in OECD high-income economies, and small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) in their second year of operation need to pay taxes more than 36 times a year, compared to an average of 23 times globally.”
Meanwhile, Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) has hailed the Federal Government’s recent reforms, saying it contributed significantly to the country’s ranking higher in the World Bank’s Doing Business 2020 Report.
Its Director-General, Timothy Olawale, yesterday in Enugu, the venue of the ongoing Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) National Leadership Retreat, highlighted some of the reforms to include Corporate Affairs Commissions’ (CAC) new electronic platform for registering businesses and linking the platform with that of Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) for instant generation of Tax Clearance Certificate number (TCC).
He added: “It also reduces human interface within the system; improvement in the land administration processes, enhances transparency and digitalization of the process; connectivity to electricity was noted as areas of improvement, especially the collaboration with the vendors (certified engineers) for connecting new subscribers; reforms in the commercial litigation of smaller cases are now more efficient by introducing pre-trial conferences and lastly, the Nigeria Customs Service’s (NSC) integration of more agencies into its electronic data interchange system and port authorities’ launch of e-payment system, which aid in speeding up both exports and imports.”
Olawale added that the country earned a place among the year’s top global improvers alongside Togo, according to the World Bank Group’s Doing Business study.
“While we note and commend the Federal Government’s efforts in promoting Ease of Doing Business (EODB), the harsh realities remain that the operating environment is still bedevilled with huge contradictions. While the FG is making efforts to ease the pains of businesses, some of its regulatory agencies are doing the direct opposite. The Agencies’ actions, sometimes bothering on illegality and blatant disregard for Court pronouncements.”
