The World Bank on Wednesday, said prospective investors in Nigeria still have issues with land administration urging the government to urgently address it improve the country’s ease of doing business ranking.
In a release “Doing Business 2020; Catalysing private sector investment in the states,” the bank said transferring property in Nigeria requires an average 12 procedures.
This was even as it noted that business promoters would be paying more than 15 per cent of the property value in charges, thus making the process twice as cumbersome and expensive as in a other economies in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The release followed a workshop of key stakeholders from states, the Federal Government and the private sector, convened Tuesday by the World Bank in partnership with the Presidential Enabling Business Council (PEBEC) and the Nigeria Governors Forum.
The workshop was held to discuss the challenge of catalysing private investment and job creation in the states and what needed to be done to improve the enabling environment for businesses at the state level.
Nigeria in the latest World Bank Ease of Doing Business report 2020 moved 15 places up to emerge 131 out of 190 countries.
The bank said Nigeria has been among the top 10 reforming economies, moving up twice in the last three years during which it moved up 38 spots in the global rankings from 169th in 2017 to 131st this year.
It attributed the progress to key reforms implemented by the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC). These reforms aim to make it easier for firms to do business by removing bottlenecks affecting business and property registration, access to finance, payment of taxes, construction permits, access to electricity, import and export of goods, as well as entry into and exit from Nigeria.
It also cited that the significant progress made by the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) in simplifying registration processes by streamlining the application form, introducing online registration and collaborating with FIRS to introduce e-stamping to the registration process.
According to the World Bank the changes, led to a reduction in the registration time significantly from 30 days in 2016 to seven days as of the latest report.