States’ W/Bank ranking’ll expose regulatory hostilities to businesses—Expert
New idea of the World Bank to rank Nigerian states on ease of doing business will expose the real cause of stagnancy in new local business developments across the states. A leading development economist, Dr. Ken Igboanugo has said.
In a telephone interview on Monday, he said “There is no need of looking for what is missing”.
“In the first instance, the World Bank did not get its national data from the blues. The statistics that revealed that Nigeria is hostile to new businesses came from states, so extending the ranking to states may not bring anything different from what we already have at national level.
“However, it will tend to show the level of business development hostilities in each state and that will help to guide every state on what to do to attract new businesses and investors.
Continuing, Dr. Igboanugo said “Key observable indices across the states will be excessive regulations, parallel documentation between states and local governments, multiple taxation and bureaucracy in land and property documentation amongst others”.
Business Hilights recalls that the National Economic Council (NEC) recently gave indication through the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr. Okechukwu Enelamah, and the Secretary to the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC), Dr. Jumoke Oduwole that all the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) will be ranked based on an assessment of the ease of doing business within each location for the period 2014-2018.
According to the scheme, the Sub-national Rankings will be undertaken by the World Bank Group, with the Enabling Business Environment Secretariat (EBES) and the Nigerian Investment Promotion Council (NIPC) providing support to the state governments as they implement their priority reforms.
The eleven indicator areas to be ranked include four World Bank indicators and seven additional areas of interest that are governed or implemented by state governments. The World Bank indicators are Starting a Business, Enforcing Contract, Registering Property and Dealing with Construction Permits. The seven additional indicator areas include Trade/Investment & Marketing, Infrastructure, Access to Land Property, Regulatory Environment, Institutional support & business resources, Transparency & accessibility to Information and Security.
Just unlike the global World Bank Doing Business Rankings which evaluates nations based on the performances of one or two major cities, the sub-nationals would rank all states, capture local differences, help regions compete and tell their stories, and provide replicable good practices.
The 2018 Nigerian sub-national rankings will be the fourth in the series, following similar efforts by the World Bank in 2008, 2010, and 2014. Since 2005, the World Bank Sub-national Reports has bench-marked 438 locations in 65 economies.
