December 12, 2017

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has urged Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and other facilitators of the Ease of Doing Business plan to brace up for tougher measures in 2018.

He gave the charge at the presentation of Impact Awards to some organisations, Lagos and Kano governments which facilitated Nigeria’s upward movement on the 2018 Ease of Doing Business ranking of the World Bank.

Nigeria had moved up 24 places to 145th in the World Banks ranking as well as emerged one of the 10 most improved economies in the world.

The Vice President noted that without hard work in the future, the country might not be able to sustain the gains already made within the past one year.

“The nest plan of the action is bound to be a lot harder.

“Unless we put our minds and work harder we may not achieve our targets.

“We must make impact in the country’s business environment and we must create an environment where businessmen are able to do business with ease,’’ Osinbajo said.

The Vice President noted that a lot of delays caused in businesses transactions were caused by bureaucracies but observed that the administration was working hard to eliminate the delays.

“I am happy that the attitude (of bureaucracies) is changing’’ he noted.

According to him, the next few months of plan implementation will involve a lot of doing “and all of us should be there, including more states; I hope we will achieve more than our first action plan.’’

Osinbajo expressed happiness that the executive and the legislature collaborated to ensure the successes achieved in the country’s business environment.

He noted that even at the sub-national level there was much the federal government could do explaining that Lagos and Kano which keyed into the first plan performed creditably.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the National Assembly, Kano and Lagos agencies as well as some credit institutions were honoured for their contributions to the success achieved in the Ease of Doing Business.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr Yakubu Dogara, told correspondents that the National Assembly (NASS) was not expecting an award describing it as “an over kill’’.

He said that with or without the reward, the fact that NASS had done it in the interest of the people it represented was fair enough.

He noted that the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) felt that the way NASS passed the bills that helped in the rating was okay.

“But I do not think that it is necessary for the NASS to be given any award or be recognized for doing the job they were elected to do.’’

He said it was not something that the legislature had an option as it had to do it in the nation’s interest.

According to him, following the Delaware principle, investors are rational and want to look at jurisdictions, best business destinations that offer them the best choices for their investments.

Dogara noted that when businesses failed to find ease of doing business they moved to other places noting that in the past a record number of companies relocated from Nigeria to other jurisdictions.

“So it was contingent upon the National Assembly to do all we can within the shortest time possible to support government initiative in order to improve the Ease of Doing Business in the country.

He noted that in a democracy, the government did not run people’s lives and what the government needed to do was to provide them with the opportunity to compete.

He said that if there were enterprises and companies established in Nigeria and business environment made conducive more jobs would be created.

“We owe it a duty to our citizens who put us in power and expect much from this government to ensure that we improve the business environment so that we can attract more direct flow of foreign investments,’’ he stated.

Dogara said that the award would motivate the NASS to ensure that the next form of achievements the business plan envisaged would be achieved in a record time.