Ease of Doing Business yields results

Following a discouraging epileptic policy regime and undulating business environment, the administration of President Mohammmadu Buhari, in July 2016, inaugurated the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council, as the administration’s flagship initiative to reform the business environment. The PEBEC, chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo was also to attract investment and diversify the economy to reduce the nation’s reliance on oil. The big picture was to make it easier for micro, small and medium enterprises to do business, grow and contribute to sustainable economic activity, and provide the jobs essential to improving social inclusion.
The PEBEC later approved the third 60-day National Action Plan (NAP 3.0) from February 5 to April 5, 2018 to drive the ease of doing business initiative. The action plan was expected to further reduce the challenges faced by the MSMEs when getting credit, paying taxes or moving goods across the country among others by removing critical bottlenecks and bureaucratic constraints to doing business in Nigeria.
In May 2017, Osinbajo as the acting President also signed Executive Order 1 on improving transparency and the business environment in Nigeria. Luckily, the implementation of some of these reforms and others across various sectors helped Nigeria move up 24 places in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index 2018.
The Ease of doing business index ranks countries against each other based on how the regulatory environment is conducive to business operationstronger protections of property rights. Economies with a high rank (1 to 20) have simpler and more friendly regulations for businesses.
Nigeria is ranked 146 among 190 economies in the ease of doing business, according to the latest World Bank annual ratings. The rank of Nigeria deteriorated to 146 in 2018 from 145 in 2017. Ease of Doing Business in Nigeria averaged 145.09 from 2008 until 2018, reaching an all time high of 170 in 2014 and a record low of 120 in 2008.
Nigeria actually moved up from the 168th position in 2017 ranking to 145th in the 2018 report scoring 52.03 out of 100.
This “improvement” was a product of serious effort put in by the government having also joined the Open Government Partnership, developed a National Action Plan and committed to “Improving the ease of doing business and Nigeria’s ranking on the World Bank doing business index”.
But some of the issues considered on the World Bank doing business index included starting a business, how easy or difficult is it to register and start a business?
Other factors include registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors and paying taxes. The intention of government is to see that the difficulty around these issues are removed such that Nigerians or even foreigners who want to do business in Nigeria do so with ease.
On this, the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) has revealed that it has registered over 618, 309 companies between 2016 to 2018.
Speaking at a stakeholders forum organised by the Agency in Abuja to interact with customers and have feedback on the successes of its policies, the Acting Registrar of CAC, Lady Azinge commended the number of registration achieved under the Business Incentive Strategy (BIS) policy.
She said in the last “3 years, the statistics on registration of firms/companies under Parts Limited Liability Company (A), Business Name (B) and Incorporated Trustee (C) has amounted to N618,309.”
Aziinge also said over N3,098,193 has been generated from the registration of companies since the inception of the policy in September 2018 to March 21st, 2019.
She acknowledged that from the initial 3 months of the Business Incentive Strategy (BIS) registration, registration of companies has increased tremendously.
The Acting Registrar explained that in 2016, the Commission got the sum of N175,098 from the LLC (A), N193,194 from Business name (B) in 2017 and the Agency got the sum of N252,035 from Incorporated Trustee (C) in 2018.
According to her, “the major trust in the present administration is to revamp the Nigerian economy through the support of the Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs ) whose activities contribute in no small measure to the development.”
She said the commission remains resolute in reviewing its processes regularly.
“In that regard, work is at an advanced stage to amend its enabling law, the Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) in collaboration with the National Assembly, “ to ease starting and growing Businesses in Nigeria, Ensure more appropriate regulation for MSMEs,” she noted