FG Pledges to Eradicate Bureaucracy Hindering Economic Expansion

Omololu Ogunmade in Abuja
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo Tuesday night in Abuja, pledged federal government’s commitment to eradicate bureaucracy hindering the spring of new businesses and economic expansion in Nigeria.
The vice president made the remark during an award ceremony tagged: ‘Impact Award,’ organised by the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa.

Osinbajo who said the recent ranking of Nigeria as one of the top 10 most improved world economies was an attestation to the power of unity and cooperation which he said earned Nigeria that mark.
PEBEC’s Impact Award was organised to serve as the platform for the appreciation and recognition of individuals, institutions, ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) perceived to have contributed to Nigeria moving up 24 places in World Bank’s latest doing business report.

“We are working hard on the attitudes of bureaucrats and persons who have been charged with the responsibility of making things easy,” Osinbajo said, adding: “the whole business of processing pre-investment approvals and all of that should be with the view to making things easy not with a view to becoming an obstacle of sort.”

Osinbajo acknowledged improvement in the attitude of bureaucrats in recent times, assuring that the federal government would ensure there is further improvement in such behaviour with a view to accelerating progress in Nigeria’s business environment.
He commended the drivers of Nigeria’s geometric rise in World Bank’s ease of doing business assessment, disclosing that “the next few weeks will involve a lot of doing,” as he tasked them to yet pick up their gauntlets to move Nigeria’s doing business status to the next level, pointing out that “there is absolutely nothing we cannot achieve as a people if we set our mind to it.”

He praised the National Assembly which was one of the recipients of the Impact Award for its role in fostering enabling business environment in Nigeria through the passage of relevant bills.
Speaking with journalists after the event, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, said it was absolutely unnecessary for the executive to give the National Assembly an award for performing its constitutional role.

Rather, he said it was only necessary for the National Assembly to deploy the power within its reach to support the federal government’s commitment to enhance Nigeria’s business environment.
“It was contingent upon the National Assembly to do all we can within the shortest possible time we had to support government initiative in order to improve the ease of doing business in this country,” Dogara said.

Other recipients of the award were Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Central Bank of Nigeria and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).
While Lagos State received “Impact Award: Construction Permit,” Kano State, on the other hand, received “Impact Award: Registering Business.”