At the FEC meeting, President Muhammadu Buhari also lauded members of his cabinet over the World Bank ranking on doing business.
The Minister of Trade and Investment, Okechukwu Enelamah, told reporters that FEC celebrated Tuesday’s ranking of Nigeria in the World Bank Doing Business report which saw Nigeria moving 24 places up from its last ranking on ease of doing business.
Okechukwu said the ranking was significant because it exceeded the target of the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC), which only sought to move Nigeria 20 places up.
Describing the feat as a turning point for Nigeria in view of the persistent decline in Nigeria’s ranking on ease of doing business in the last 10 years, Enelamah said the ranking showed that the government was moving in the right direction. However, he said what was paramount to FEC would be to see the ranking translate to practical ease of doing business in the country.
He also said FEC commended the National Assembly for passing some bills which enabled owners of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to obtain loans for their business transactions. He commended states, which partnered with the council in the pursuit.
Enelamah said the National Action Plans One and Two, which were recently launched, were yet another round of reforms being pursued by the government to enhance Nigeria’s business environment.
Also, Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu said the council approved N40.2bn for the completion of an irrigation dam in Kotangora in Niger State.
He said the project, which had been under execution since 1985, witnessed the upward review of the initial N18bn required to complete the project to N40.2bn after rigorous analyses.
Disclosing that the duration of the project is 36 months, Adamu said the National Irrigation Master Plan launched in 2016 would guarantee the provision of irrigation for 100,000 hectares of land.
