Vice President Yemi Osinbajo says state governments and their agencies have a significant role in ensuring an enabling environment for businesses to thrive, noting that it has been challenging trying to coordinate federal agencies and parastatals.

Mr Osinbajo’s spokesman, Laolu Akande, in a statement on Tuesday in Abuja, said the vice president spoke at a virtual meeting of the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC).

A presentation of the State Action on Business Enabling Reforms (SABER) Programme coordinated by the secretariat and the World Bank was discussed at the meeting.

The SABER programme is a three-year (January 2023 to December 2025) performance-based intervention jointly designed by the World Bank and the PEBEC secretariat with support from the federal ministry of finance, budget and national planning and the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) secretariat.

The purpose is to incentivise and strengthen the implementation of business enabling reforms in Nigeria, specifically across the participating states and the FCT.

Mr Osinbajo said those charged with responsibilities at the state level had their work cut out for them.

“If we are going to have the kind of business environment that our country deserves and that can make a difference for our economy, it is the hard work at the sub-national level that would really move the needle,” the vice president stressed. “The states’ process is a very important one, and I hope that we will be able to spend individually, especially in the states, a fair amount of time trying to work out how this will work in actual practice in our various states.”

He disclosed that at the federal level, it had been a major challenge trying to coordinate agencies and parastatals.

Jumoke Oduwole, the special adviser on Ease of Doing Business and secretary of PEBEC, said collaboration was ongoing for over two years in conceptualising the SABER programme.

“It is the first programme of this size that the World Bank is embarking on at this scale globally. The programme is a $750 million operation comprising two main areas – $730 million programme–for-results financing (PforR) component and $20 million technical assistance for investment project financing,” she said.

(NAN)