Ease of doing business: PEBEC identifies five priority reforms for 7th national action plan

THE Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) has identified five priority reform areas for its current 7th 60-day Nation Action Plan (NAP 7.0).

The NAPs are homegrown internationally recognized 60-day accelerators, developed to coordinate the effective delivery of priority reforms implemented by select ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), to drive ease of doing business in Nigeria.

Speaking at the Focus Group Session with key stakeholders, to mark the launch of the Council’s 7th National Action Plan (NAP 7.0), the Special Adviser to the President on Ease of Doing Business, Dr Jumoke Oduwole, said the priority reforms area include the trade/ports reform, Automation Reforms, Regulatory Reforms, Legislative/Judicial Reforms and Executive Order 01/ReportGov.NG compliance reforms.

She said this became imperative as the performance of relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in NAP 5.0 and NAP 6.0, held in the first quarter of 2020 and 2021, were below 50percent.

“Therefore, the 7th National Action Plan (NAP 7.0) is especially designed to break away from the lackluster performance of our last two outings, NAP 5.0 and NAP 6.0, held in Q1 of 2020 and 2021, which saw the relevant ministries, departments and agencies perform below par at 44% and 43% respectively for a variety of reasons,” she said.

Oduwole said although, there were improvements in particular areas, expecially in the initial years of the PEBEC’s intervention, several bureaucratic and regulatory challenges remain at all arms and levels of government.

She stressed that this has continued to affect the speed, cost and transparency of doing business in Nigeria.

The presidential aide, however, stressed the need for all relevant MDAs to strive, deliver and exceed reform target expectations during the 60-day accelerator.

She expressed hope that at the end of the 60-days acceleration, the NAP 7.0 will have delivered reform results that are a remarkable improvement over the performance of previous MDA outings.

“As NAP 7.0 continues with robust tracking and evaluation of MDAs’ compliance with the directives of the Executive Order 001, we urge stakeholders to please support the federal governments efforts by utilizing the ReportGov.NG portal, even as we strive towards making the platform the preferred choice for channelling feedback on services provided by MDAs.

“Let me assure everyone here that the PEBEC is determined to continue to work towards creating a friendly business environment where it is progressively easier to do business, where policies are predictable and consistent, with macro-economic stability, and where the Government acts as a partner to businesses and investors, not a competitor or adverse regulator, in order to attract and retain much-needed investment into the economy to facilitate private sector led growth and development,” she said.

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