Agbakoba Chambers to review laws choking business growth
Olaoluwa Folalu
AN intervention aimed at reviewing laws, which inhibit business growth and development in the country, has been unveiled by Development Law Group of Olisa Agbakoba Legal (OAL) .
The latest move to save businesses, especially Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), according to Agbakoba Chambers, was disclosed by Partner, OAL, Mr. Wilfred Mamah, at the OAL/Nigeria Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) media parley, Tuesday in Lagos.
‘‘The current challenges in the economy require major reforms in nation’s investment climate. It is against this background that OAL has found it necessary to contribute to current efforts to give Nigeria a new lease of economic life by promoting and organising an interactive media chat on the need to shore up Nigeria’s business climate and enhance its competitiveness,’’ he said.
Mamah explained that laws relating to starting a business, securing credit, securing construction permit, property registration, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency are some of the areas that OAL would be reviewing. Regrettably, he said the current economic crisis in which the country finds itself, due to growing unemployment, tumbling oil prices and the resultant sharp drop in revenues, has raised serious challenges and brought to the fore, the urgent need for a major shift in policy as well as institutional re-engineering.
Against this background, he noted that it has become very necessary to reform, realign and streamline policy in the direction of economic diversification toward the non-oil sectors, capable of shoring up Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on a sustainable basis.
The OAL partner said in the last 10 years, Nigeria has consistently ranked low in the World Bank index on Doing Business Report.
Quoting the 2015 report, which ranked Nigeria 170th out of 185 countries surveyed, Mamah noted that the nation’s potential as an investment hub is very high but legal and policy bottlenecks continue to deter investors.
Also speaking, the Director, Investment Facilitation and Incentive Administration of NIPC, Mr. Amos Sakaba, said the way out of the current economic doldrums was for the country to diversify its economy away from oil, while exploring opportunities in other key sectors of the economy.
