Stakeholders and experts have expressed mixed feelings over the various policy pronouncements of the federal government in the last 12 months, especially as it concerns ease of doing business. And expectedly, the government seems to be convinced that it has performed commendably well thus far.

David Uzosike, the Reform Lead, Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council, with the mandate to lead, coordinate, research and identify the constraints to ease of doing business in Nigeria, in an interview said a lot have been achieved.

Quote: “If you’ve been following our communication, especially looking at our website, you’ll see all the reforms and impacts we have achieved from the Ease of Doing Business perspective. And when you talk about the Executive Orders specifically, we can say there has also been some traction in that area. While acknowledging that infrastructure gaps exist, a lot has also been done to make documentation process at the port seamless. ‘’

“Truth be told, a lot has changed. For instance, where you used to have 14 documents for inspection, it’s now eight and where you used to have all the agencies inside the ports, with each of them coming one after the other to inspect containers; it has changed. Now all the agents operate with one single wind’’.

But according to Chief Cyprian Arinze, a haulage contractor, the Executive Order if anything amount to putting the horse before the cart. “If the government takes care of the roads, we can achieve over 95% Ease of Doing Business. Without this, we will just be going round and round the circles.”

Chief Remi Ogungbemi, Chairman, Association of Maritime Truck Owners (AMATO),argued that the Executive Order is far from a reality as basic infrastructure aimed at turning things around at the ports were still missing.

Quote:’’ To achieve the much hyped executive orders mandate, a deliberate measure is required to build truck terminals. I want to use this avenue to appeal to the concerned authorities to see what they can do because things are in terribly bad shape right now.”

Austin Okere, the Founder and Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Ausso Leadership Academy, expressed worry that the Economic Recovery Growth Plan tough laudable, is already suffering from inertia associated with government policies.

Quote:“I think the problem we have is that we run election economics. Great men think about the next generation but politicians think about the next election. And insofar as the economy is about amassing enough money to maneuver or win the elections by all means, then another four years, we go back to the same square, then if a new government comes in, it starts exposing saying oh, look at the money that was amassed and they say it was for election and say, ok. The point is insofar as we continue to run election economics; we’ll be where we are. In an election year, a lot of time and resources are wasted. So we have only two productive years and if you’re not lucky, the new government comes and rollback everything that had been achieved.”

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