Presidential Council to Facilitate States’ Access to $750m World Bank Facility

*Participating states to receive $52.5m within a three-year period

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

The Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) would facilitate access to the World Bank approved $750 million to enable states strengthen business environments, the council disclosed at the weekend.

The three-year performance-based intervention which would be carried out through the State Action for Business Enabling Reforms (SABER) programme, the council stated, would allow for improvement in key areas affecting the ease of doing business in the country.

Speaking on the sidelines of a demonstration programme on the achievements of PEBEC, Special Adviser to the President and Secretary of the Council, Dr. Jumoke Oduwole, said the initiative it was jointly designed by the secretariat, the World Bank, ministry of finance, budget and national planning as well as the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF).

Oduwole listed the areas of concern to include: Improving land administration and land investment process; boosting business enabling infrastructure; increasing sustainable large-scale investments and enabling firm operations.

“All participating states and the FCT could potentially receive a maximum of $52.5m during the three-year period,” she stressed.
She explained that there had been extensive engagements with the states by the council to strengthen the programme design and the states’ capacity to deliver on the expected results.

She stressed that the drama presentation was to showcase the reforms in the last six years, noting that though there are problems associated with doing business in Nigeria,  there had been numerous reforms aimed at tackling the challenges.

According to her there is now an automated business registration process which takes two days, while there is a visa-on-arrival programme which takes hours.
She added that the idea was to make the people believe in the process and use the infrastructure as the council continues to work on the speed of getting regulations on ease of doing business done faster, reduce cost, increase efficiency and transparency.

“The World Bank just approved a $750 million facility for state government for business climate reforms. That is part of our work and that is a legally binding contract.

“The legislations will be legally binding, so, it is not personal. Each ministry has a desk that champions this work and we are coordinators. It is really the work of the public and civil servants,” she added.

The Secretary explained that the access to the fund would begin in December, but that the programme would fully kick off in January, adding that all stakeholders were being carried along in the process.
“We have been working with them from inception. We have been working on land administration, because when the private sector has their land properly documented, they can use it to access credit.

“We are also working on a Public/Private Partnership (PPP) framework, so that global investors can come, knowing that the country has a PPP framework. We are working on access to broadband, because technology is the way e-commerce and digitisation work.  We are also tackling the right of way issues to lay fibre cables across the country,” she said.

The PEBEC was established in July 2016 by President Muhammadu Buhari to remove critical bottlenecks and bureaucratic constraints to doing business in Nigeria under the chairmanship of the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo.