The challenge to the enhancement of ease-of-doing-business in Nigeria came to the fore recently. There have been reverberating complaints by stakeholders on the poor performance of the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) in the registration of companies, among others. Though the CAC through its head of Public Affairs dismissed the complaints, the issues involved are germane to the growth and development of private enterprise in Nigeria that they should not be swept under the carpet, but rather addressed frontally with a view to improving the country’s business environment.

The country cannot afford blanket dismissals of complaints at this stage of its development particularly with the economic challenges being experienced by Nigerians. This is coupled with the disturbing and widely reported exodus of foreign companies from the country’s economic landscape. This performance of the CAC is an issue the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) needs to look at very critically.

First, it can be recalled that as far back as 2015, under the then leadership of Mahmud Bello as the Registrar-General of the CAC, an online portal was launched that introduced a 24-hour business registration policy. This policy had brought about speedy company registration and quick resolution of queries in the country. In those ‘good old days’, registration of business names, limited liability companies and incorporated trustees happened within 24 to 48 hours with removal or inclusion of directors concluded within 48 hours. Indeed, in those days, according to the then Registrar-General, “a customer is a king and must be treated with royalty.”

But times seem to have changed with the myriads of complaints by various stakeholders trailing many of the CAC services. These have obvious implications for the ‘ease of doing business’ index for Nigeria, which the government is seeking to improve. The complaints of inefficiencies from the work of the CAC are rife. The concept of self-service introduced under the watch of the past Registrar-General has become delusional in many cases. This is contrary to the promises made by the Commission in this regard. There are issues with the functionality of the CAC portal, which tends to make the manual process that hitherto was the vogue somewhat attractive.

There have been technical challenges in managing the portal, which inhibit the efficient processing of registrations including uploading of documents for processing. There is also the unprofessional attitude of the CAC staffers who seem to present themselves as obstacles rather than expected facilitators in the processing of registrations and company record management issues. The complainants claim that in many cases, issues that ought to be resolved within a month take many months due to unnecessary bureaucracies in the processing of documents.

For example, the change of business names to limited liability companies that should ordinarily take a few days take weeks. All these call for concern for the growth of private enterprise in the country. It is the duty of the CAC to look closely into these complaints and make amends to assure Nigerians and foreign investors that the country is indeed ready for big time commercialisation and industrialisation.

Is it thus any wonder that the 2024 Outlook document of the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC), indicates that of 345 companies in Africa with annual turnover revenue of $1 billion, only 23 are in Nigeria? The PEBEC Secretariat’s work plan for 2024 indicates that Nigerian companies constitute less than one per cent of this category, hence representing a clear indictment of the operating environment for firms in an economy that is reputed to be one of the largest on the African continent. Complaints about poor environment may take root from registration of business, such that if this is deemed unfriendly, it signposts bad signals for investors.

The challenges in registration of companies in Nigeria is an additional burden to already existing poor business climate issues where firms have to provide their own security, electricity, water, and access roads among others. It is a shame that should be reversed that multinationals are leaving the country and relocating to smaller economies such as Ghana, among others, where they can have better business operating environments.

The CAC can rise to the occasion and begin to do things right. It needs to embark on massive training and retraining of its staff. It needs to ensure that its self-service option is feasible and that technical issues relating to its portal are promptly addressed. Nigeria needs to improve on its World Bank’s ease of doing business ranking as quickly as possible and the CAC has a key role to play in this regard.

The country’s 2020 ranking of 105 out of 190 countries on the “starting a business category” is not good enough. The Bola Tinubu administration, through the PEBEC, needs to rein in the CAC to get its acts right in this regard in order to make its modest contribution to the growth of the Nigerian economy. (The Guardian Editorial)