PEBEC Urges Borno State to Deepen Reforms for Business Growth

The Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) has called on the Borno State Government to intensify its business-friendly reforms to foster entrepreneurship and attract greater investment. Zahrah Audu, Director-General of PEBEC, made this appeal during a town hall meeting in Maiduguri with private sector operators and relevant government agencies.

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This programme was organised in conjunction with the Borno State Government. For us at PEBEC, the Director General of the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council, Princess Zahrah Audu, has found it fit to have this second subnational tour at the state level again.

Audu stressed that local businesses can flourish if state governments implement reforms that promote investment, streamline processes, and cultivate a more favorable environment for enterprise growth. The meeting, a part of PEBEC's nationwide engagement on subnational business reforms, aimed to assess the reform efforts of government agencies and facilitate interaction between policymakers and the private sector.

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It is divided into two parts; the first part of this engagement is to meet with some business-enabling MDAs at the state level to look at the reforms they have been doing to ease business and what they will need to do. The second session is used to create a platform for the organised private sector to meet with the MDAs at the state level to express their pain points, and for the government to enlighten the private sector on what they have done and the reforms they have deployed that businesses can take advantage of.

The engagement was structured in two parts: first, a review of reforms undertaken by business-enabling Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) at the state level, and second, a platform for the organized private sector to voice their concerns and for government bodies to inform businesses about available reforms. PEBEC has developed recommendations for states, including harmonizing fees and levies across different government levels and adopting a regulatory impact analysis framework similar to the federal approach.

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So far, we have brought up some investment-friendly reforms that states can adopt in terms of doing business, and we have engaged them on the need for harmonisation of fees and levies at the state and local government levels, as well as how business ranking is done. Lastly, we made them understand the regulatory impact analysis framework that is already operational at the federal level for states to adopt a similar approach.

PEBEC assured stakeholders that it would continue to track progress and engage with the Borno State government to ensure the implementation of agreed-upon reforms. The council will ultimately issue a subnational ranking to evaluate each state's effectiveness in providing an enabling environment for businesses.

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After the engagement, we will continue to follow up. We will continue to track and engage with the state to ensure that the issues raised as challenges are addressed. At the end of the day, we will have our subnational ranking that will assess the state on how far they have gone in terms of providing an enabling environment for business.