Stop discussing ease of doing business, solve the puzzle, simple! Industrialists tell FG
Just as the federal government, through the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Okechukwu Enelamah, will tomorrow (Thursday, May 4) meet with members of the Institute of Directors (IoD) at an interactive Advocacy Roundtable Forum in Lagos on ease of doing business, analysts and industrialists alike have argued that related discussions are getting out of hand.
They say what they demand from the government is no more attending talk shops but results from its reforms since it come into power and noticed that ease of doing business is bad.
According to Dr. Ken Igboanugo, “You cannot solve issues of ease of doing business only on speaking at talk shops or conferences, but by recalibrating many of the business frustrating policies it has introduced in the last two years it come to power”.
“The Minister is not going to hear a different thing far from what many Nigerian industrialists had been crying about; forex access, flexible loan regimes, provision of infrastructures, policy consistency, early processing and release of budget and corruption in accessing common official services form government agencies.
“That’s all, I do not know what else IoD members will tell the Minister in that conference.
Corroborating Dr. Igboanugo’s submission, chairman of Erisco Foods argued that “All we need from the government is to assure both local and foreign investors that it is now ready for policy consistency so that we can advance investments without fears”.
Business Hilights recalls that the company had threatened to pull out of Nigeria at the heat of forex crisis few months ago.
However, in a statement, the Acting Director-General/CEO of IoD Nigeria, Mohammed Jumba, noted that the objectives of the forum is to seek ways by which the organized private sector can partner with government towards creating a synergy to overcome the challenges being faced by businesses in Nigeria and to provide a platform for networking opportunities for policy and decision makers.
The talk shop will hold at the Lagos Oriental Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos by 11.00AM tomorrow.
