The Sub-national Ease of Doing Business Report has listed low power supply, multiplicity of taxes and poor road infrastructure as some of the challenges faced by Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, MSMEs, in states across Nigeria.
The report was presented at Thursday’s virtual meeting of the National Economic Council, NEC, presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
Special Adviser to the President on Ease of Doing Business, Jumoke Oduwole, who briefed State House correspondents after the meeting, said the challenges provide opportunities for her office and governors of states to resolve the issues in the findings.
“Businesses have said that electricity supply is low, the hours are low. Then, we will be working with the governors and federal agencies to look into areas like that.
“SMEs also talked about road infrastructure, they talked about regulatory challenges, paying of taxes, multiplicity of charges.
“So, we will be working with state’s internal revenue agencies to ensure that there is harmony.”
According to Dr. Oduwole, the report is a peer review document that would enable state governments to see how they are doing in comparison with other states in providing conducive business environment.
“So, the Ease of Doing Business Councils reports to the states’ executive councils and they implement the report just like PEBEC and FEC; so, the system is replicated across the country.
“We believe that as we continue to drill down into Nigeria, progressively making it easier to do business, our productivity will increase as we support our SMESs.
“We make sure that on competitiveness, we are working actively at it even as AFCFTA has gone into life and the journey of continuous improvement and institutionalisation of the reform agenda is top priority for the administration.
Security
Oduwole said that the responses of businesses to questions bordering on security were positive.
“But that doesn’t mean that work shouldn’t be done; that got about six out of ten. So, there is still quite a bit of work and of course we know everything going on across the country.
“This is a business climate survey and we are speaking with SMEs and how it affects their business in particular,” she stated.
According to Oduwole, the survey was conducted across Nigeria by the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council, PEBEC, which has been on nationwide tour, called iteration, since 2019, to meet and interview SMEs on their operations.
“So, we decided to carry out an empirical survey; it was carried out by KPMG.
“The methodology framework had earlier been approved by NEC as far back as 2018 and we have four home grown indicator areas on which the survey is based which are infrastructure and security; transparency and access to information; the regulatory environment and skills and labour readiness in each state and the Federal Capital Territory.”
Oduwole said that the the objective of the report was to provide a status report of state’s business climate and to provide a baseline on the business climate of each state.
He adds that it is also going to help states as they prepare for their sub-national World Bank Ease of Doing Business ranking which is done once every four years.
Lateefah Ibrahim
