Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) an agency set up to remove bureaucratic constraints to doing business in Nigeria has taken campaign on ease of doing business reform to Enugu state, calling on sub- nationals to access the 750 million Dollars Worldbank.loan to aid businesses in the county.
Reform Leader, PEBEC, Gabriel Ohiemi, who made the call at the State Action on Business Enabling Reforms ( Technical session and state town hall meeting held on Tuesday in Enugu, lamented that states were not accessing the 750 Dollars World bank loan, for ease of doing business . He said less than 10 percent of the loan was accessed.
According to him, PEBEC ‘s engagement with the stakeholders in Enugu state was a nationwide program, which started from Enugu, South East region aimed at to deepening ease of doing business reform in the state.
His words: “what we have here is a sub-national town hall meeting and stakeholder engagement. In the morning, we gave Technical Asistance (TA) to the desk officers leading the different Disbursement Link Indicators (DLIs). So, this PEBEC Secretariat handles four DLIs; DLI 4, DLI 5, DLI 6 and DLI 8. We were able to give technical assistance to all the DLI leads at the subnational level.
” We extensively discussed SABER (State Action on Business Enabling Reforms) in the morning session and we had an engagement question and answer session after which we progressed to the afternoon session which is the stakeholder’s engagement, and which is very critical to our ease of doing business report which we are expecting to be released at the end of the year.
“It is a nationwide tour that all the regions in Nigeria are being covered. We started with Enugu in the South East after which we proceed to Ebonyi , Imo and Abia. That is our itinerary and it is a very impactful one because it is going on simultaneously across the country, aimed towards deepening the ease of doing business reforms at the subnational level.
“For context, SABER is a 750 million dollar World Bank loan and it is in close collaboration with PEBEC Secretariat. This loan has been inadequately utilized because less than 10% of 750 million dollar has been accessed. A lot is still yet to be accessed and we are asking subnational government to take deliberate actions in meeting up with their deliverables so that we can access the loan”, he urged.
Speaking, the Managing Director/ CEO Enugu state Investment Development Authority ( ESIDA), Dr. Sam Ogbu Nwobodo said Enugu’s involvement with PEBEC has been foundational.
” I mean, Enugu aligned with the national business initiative from onset. Enugu was among the first to set up the Ease of Doing Business Council. Enugu is one of the first state to set up structures for that. Under the current administration, it’s taking a bigger bolder dimension. We now have an Active Investment Development Agency, ACIDA. We now have a very robust engagement with the private sector. “
According to him,there were programmes PEBEC had with the World Bank with the input from the Nigerian Governors’ Forum, which Enugu state keyed into.
“That also has helped to structure what we do and align what we do, giving us some metrics, what we call Disbursement Link Indicators (DLI) we use to measure your efforts and using the Business Enabling Action Plan System, which also under Governor Peter Mbah we have assigned wholly to be achieved in all the DLIs, this also gives us a structured approach, not just initiating the reform but implementing, monitoring and evaluating what we are doing,” he said..
Dr. Ogbu Nwobodo recalled that the first thing the Governor did when he took over office was the signing of Executive Order 003 and Executive Order 005.
“What that does is to codify the system of the ease of doing business reform, and mandated SLAs to align themselves in a call for accountability, transparency, and optimal performance. By doing that, they are required to draft their Service Level Agreements, SLAs, publish it, and abide by it. A typical SLA will announce the mandate of the agency; a typical SLA (Service Level Agreeement) will announce the procedure for that government to business interface, be it whatever, especially with the business enabling MDAs.
He explained that,” SLA will talk about the cost, and also talk about the timeline, will talk about the requirement, what kind of forms – how you know those minute things that go into getting document services; that stepping out of your house you already know what to do. How long and who to talk to, and how long it will take you to get the services done, especially with businesses.
“I am talking about businesses now, I am sure there are other sectors but I am talking about businesses. If you need to get your business permit; if you need to get your tax clearance; if you need to get your C of O; if you need to engage with other MDAs – survey department, and even the Ministry of Transport, getting licence for your car and road worthiness, water connection, signages, others.
“If you go to the state website landing page of investment.enugustate.govt.ng, you will see it displayed there. What we are encouraging businesses to do is to get themselves acquainted with these processes, arm themselves so that they don’t argue in the emptiness. SLAs are supposed to hold government accountable. If I tell you that I am going to do something in seven days the citizens must assume that. If there is a reason, especially where there’s insufficient information supplied by the citizens, that’s understandable, but they must respond within the time, or request for further interaction.
“That’s what it does, and the beauty of it too is that the Governor went beyond what it should be to include what we call Default Approval. What that means is that if you perform everything according to the SLA as a business and somehow the business refuses or neglect, and you have done everything according to the SLA, you are entitled to assume. That’s innovative, it’s a government saying hold me responsible.”, Ogbu Nwobodo said.
He noted the SLAs were constantly being reformed., adding that the Ease of Doing Business Council chaired by the Governor, with his office as the Reform Champion and the focal person constantly monitor what’s going on with the compliance level and compliance rate difficulties.
On his part, chairman, Enugu State Internal Revenue Service ( ESIRS) Ekene Nnamani, said in Enugu state the revenue collection had been consolidated that they have one-stop-shop for revenue collection by the state.
*So, in other to do that, we have a robust website www.irs.en.gov.ng. On getting to this website you see all the types of tax we collect , but majorly the taxes we collect are personal income taxes for residents, taxes that are paid by individuals such as personal income tax, demarcating into per as you earn and direct assessment.
” Other taxes we collect are property tax for property owners. So, every other tax in the state are based on service such as the Environmental (ESWAMA), Fire Service and other business premise revenue. In the state we have also consolidated , demarcating into formal sector and informal sector. The formal sector ;they get their revenue through one consolidated demand notice. Informal sector also get theirs through what we call the E-ticket and you pay once and go your way. This is what we have done in the state to ensure that businesses don’t get additional stress and also to ensure that the ease of doing business is a top priority of the government of Enugu State”, Nnamani said.
Author: Maureen Ikpeama