Ease Of Doing Business: Land Administration Still Major Problem In Nigeria –- World Bank

The World Bank on Wednesday said land administration in Nigeria
remains a critical problem that should be checked in order to
improve the country’s ease of doing business ranking.

In a release “Doing Business 2020; Catalysing private sector
investment in the states,” the bank said transferring property in
Nigeria requires on average 12 procedures.

It also said it costs more than 15 per cent of the property
value, making the process twice as cumbersome and expensive as in
the average economy in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The release followed a workshop of key stakeholders from states,
the federal government and the private sector, convened Tuesday by
the World Bank in partnership with the Presidential Enabling
Business Council (PEBEC) and the Nigeria Governors Forum.

The workshop was held to discuss the challenge of catalysing
private investment and job creation in the states and what needed
to be done to improve the enabling environment for businesses at
the state level.

Nigeria in the latest World Bank Ease of Doing Business report
2020, made a notable improvement by moving 15 places up to emerge
131 out of 190 countries.

The bank said Nigeria has been among the top 10 reforming
economies, moving up twice in the last three years during which it
moved up 38 spots in the global rankings from 169th in 2017 to
131st this year.

It attributed the progress to key reforms implemented by the
Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC). These
reforms aim to make it easier for firms to do business by removing
bottlenecks affecting business and property registration, access to
finance, payment of taxes, construction permits, access to
electricity, import and export of goods, as well as entry into and
exit from Nigeria.

It also cited that the significant progress made by the
Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) in simplifying registration
processes by streamlining the application form, introducing online
registration and collaborating with FIRS to introduce e-stamping to
the registration process.

These changes, the bank said, led to a reduction in the
registration time significantly from 30 days in 2016 to seven days
as of the latest report. Within the last year, the registration fee
for SMEs was also reduced by half.

It also said the elimination of the infrastructure development
charge for warehouses in Lagos State contributed significantly to
the progress made in dealing with construction permits.

At the subnational level, it said 29 states implemented 43
reforms in the last four years with Kaduna, Enugu, Lagos, Abia and
Anambra states making the most progress.

It said the time to enforce contracts was cut nearly in half in
Enugu State.

“Kaduna stands out for having engaged in a holistic reform
effort in the four areas measured by the subnational report and is
now the top-ranked state in the area of registering property and
enforcing contracts,” it said.

It also said the subnational report shows that there is a lot of
opportunities for states to learn from each other, as no single
Nigerian state dominates the indicator rankings across all areas
benchmarked.

The results show that most states, if not all, have something to
showcase and something to learn.

According to the World Bank’s Country Director for Nigeria,
Shubham Chaudhuri, the new rankings show that Nigeria has made
substantial progress.

However, he said there is much that still remains to be
done.

“We, at the World Bank Group, look forward to continuing to work
with states and federal governments as well as the private sector
on this important agenda and build on the existing reform
momentum.

“Political leadership and robust institutional mechanisms and
action at the state-level will be especially critical for
continuing and even accelerating the progress made thus far,” he
said.

In her remarks, the special adviser to the President on Ease of
Doing Business, Jumoke Oduwole, said Nigeria has an ambitious
target of being ranked among the top 70 countries on the World Bank
ease of doing business report by 2023.

“The PEBEC is therefore committed to fostering more engagement
among reform-implementing organs of government towards making
Nigeria a progressively easier place to do business,” Mrs Oduwole
said.