The Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) Monday expressed its commitment to implement the 60-day agro export action plan.
The Special Adviser to the President on Ease of Doing Business, Dr. Jumoke Oduwole, disclosed this in Abuja at the Focus Group Session with key stakeholders organized to mark the launch of the Council’s 7th National Action Plan (NAP 7.0).
She said the faithful implementation of the Agro-export plan would boost the competitiveness of Nigeria’s agro-exports, create jobs; enhance foreign exchange earnings and provide good rewards for farmers all across the country.
“In the area of Ports and trade facilitation, the focus is on a 60-day agro-export action plan targeted at ensuring that perishable agricultural produce earmarked for export are allowed to move freely through our ports.
“Indeed, the faithful implementation of the Agro-export plan is expected to boost the competitiveness of Nigeria’s agro-exports, and create jobs, while enhancing Nigeria’s foreign exchange earnings and providing good rewards for the labours of farmers all across Nigeria’’, Oduwole said.
The presidential aide, however, identified five priority reform areas for PEBEC’s current 7th 60-day Nation Action Plan (NAP 7.0), stating that the priority reforms area include the trade/ports reform, Automation Reforms, Regulatory Reforms, Legislative/Judicial Reforms and Executive Order 01/ReportGov.NG compliance reforms.
She said this became imperative as the performance of relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in NAP 5.0 and NAP 6.0, held in the first quarter of 2020 and 2021, were below 50percent.
“Therefore, the 7th National Action Plan (NAP 7.0) is especially designed to break away from the lackluster performance of our last two outings, NAP 5.0 and NAP 6.0, held in Q1 of 2020 and 2021, which saw the relevant ministries, departments and agencies perform below par at 44% and 43% respectively for a variety of reasons,” she said.
Oduwole said although there were improvements in particular areas, especially in the initial years of the PEBEC’s intervention, several bureaucratic and regulatory challenges remained at all arms and levels of government.
She stressed that this had continued to affect the speed, cost and transparency of doing business in Nigeria.
The presidential aide, however, stressed the need for all relevant MDAs to strive, deliver and exceed reform target expectations during the 60-day accelerator.
She expressed hope that at the end of the 60-day acceleration, the NAP 7.0 will have delivered reform results that are a remarkable improvement over the performance of previous MDA outings.
“As NAP 7.0 continues with robust tracking and evaluation of MDAs’ compliance with the directives of the Executive Order 001, we urge stakeholders to please support the federal government’s efforts by utilizing the ReportGov.NG portal, even as we strive towards making the platform the preferred choice for channelling feedback on services provided by MDAs.
“Let me assure everyone here that the PEBEC is determined to continue to work towards creating a friendly business environment where it is progressively easier to do business, where policies are predictable and consistent, with macro-economic stability, and where the government acts as a partner to businesses and investors, not a competitor or adverse regulator, in order to attract and retain much-needed investment into the economy to facilitate private sector led growth and development,” she said.
