TheCable

The senate has passed the business facilitation bill following its earlier passage by the house of representatives.

The bill, also known as the omnibus bill, which will now be transmitted shortly to President Muhammadu Buhari for his assent, is an intervention by the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) to consolidate and amend legislative provisions towards deepening PEBEC reforms and removing bottlenecks for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in Nigeria.

This development comes on the heels of the recent approval of the $750 million World Bank-backed State Action on Business Enabling Reforms (SABER) programme by the federal executive council (FEC), which was earlier approved by the World Bank Board.

In a statement by Jumoke Oduwole,
special adviser to the president on ease of doing business and PEBEC secretary, she said the SABER programme will incentivise and strengthen the implementation of business-enabling reforms across all states in Nigeria.

“With these laudable strides, the PEBEC is poised to mark the festive season by staging its critically acclaimed play titled ‘the future is here’ which showcases its ease of doing business reforms free of charge to the public from December 30 to January 1 at Landmark Event Centre in Lagos,” Oduwole said.