FG, USAID Plan to Reduce Cost of Business in Nigeria

    The Federal Government is developing a road network as part of new package that will reduce the cost of business in the country by decreasing transportation costs. The pilot road project, which will connect Lagos to the North is being developed in conjunction with some private sector partners and supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) In addition to USAID, other agencies and parastatals of the government involved are the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission, the ministries of Commerce and Industry, Finance; Nigeria Customs Service and Nigerian Immigration Service. The Executive Secretary, NIPC, C, represented by the commission’s Deputy Director (Infrastructures), Alhaji Aminu Takuma, stated this in an interview with journalists during the inauguration of Abuja chapter of Entrepreneurship Organisations, a global business network of over 10,000 owners in 131 chapters and 40 countries. Mr. Hassan said, “The NIPC was invited on board by the USAID to work on a transport corridor that runs from Lagos to Marabi and Jibia in Katsina State. The idea is to see how we can bring down the cost of transportation and improve transportation along that area. “We are talking of road and also rail transportation. How do we take charge of the informal illegal charges that are being collected on the road? I give you an example. A container that leaves Lagos port, which is bound for Kano, takes nothing less than 12 and half days to get there and the cost is about $3, 070, to move from Lagos to Kano.” “We are trying to see how we can bring that cost down from 12.5 days to a day or two.” “When you want to export, from Kano to Lagos, it takes another 19 days and $4,000. With all these, doing business in Nigeria is difficult and so we are trying to see how we can bring the number of days lower and bring down the cost.” The President of Entrepreneurship Organisations (Nigeria), Alhaji Abdulrasaq Shittu, said despite all the threats to the nation’s economic and political stability, a recent rating of the economy as published by a rating agency gave Nigeria a rebated GDP of $10bn with an estimation that it would surge to $4.5tn by 2050. He said, “The non-availability of adequate infrastructure coupled with high illiteracy has kept our poverty level at 70 per cent of the entire population of which the only solution lies with entrepreneurs who are ready to get innovative by seeking for synergy and experiences with their counterparts in the developed economies in which the EO global members dwell.”