Ease of killing business
I don’t like de-marketing my country. I seize every opportunity to remind whoever cares to listen that Nigeria is still the best place to be on the surface of the earth. We may have our problems like every other country in the world but we haven’t used the blood and sweat of other races to […]
I don’t like de-marketing my country. I seize every opportunity to remind whoever cares to listen that Nigeria is still the best place to be on the surface of the earth. We may have our problems like every other country in the world but we haven’t used the blood and sweat of other races to build our empire.
However, our society could be better. We could do for our people what governments in other climes do for theirs in order to enable them thrive and contribute to the development of the society.
When I see local government officials terrorising food vendors in our urban centres, my mind immediately goes back to the Mama selling tea and coffee from her mobile trolley on the kerbside in Johannesburg. Government lays down environmental rules and guidelines but allows citizens to carry out economic activity within that framework. In Lagos or Abuja, that tea-selling Mama would be arrested and her wares confiscated.
Recently in Abuja, with the collaboration of some policemen, enforcers of the Environment Department swooped on some women selling puff-puff and soft drinks. They arrested the consignments of puff-puff and soft drinks and zoomed off. Everyone knew that those snacks were destined for the stomachs of the officials and their police accomplices.
To add otapiapia to injury, some of the traders were arrested and only released upon the payment of negotiated bribes. That scene could be replicated in hundreds of places across our cities.
It is almost as if government is convinced that poverty is a crime and its officials are therefore determined to exterminate the poor.
How come I can buy shish kebab on the sidewalk of 42nd Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues in Manhattan, New York, but I can’t do same on the streets of Lagos and Abuja where my Suya seller or Boli roaster is an endangered specie?
The difference between the New York seller and his Nigerian counterpart is that government in the US transparently lays out standards that protect the society and at the same time allow citizens on the lower rungs of life’s ladder to provide needed services like food vending.
In the US as in South Africa, government standardises the vending cart. The average colourful four-wheeled New York cart is usually about eight feet long with compartments for a hot-water tank for hot dogs, a cooler for ice and soft drinks, a dry shelf for pretzels, a one-foot-square charcoal grill and an attached garbage bin, all covered by a massive umbrella.
Such carts are part of urban cityscapes. The vendors are gainfully employed and they are then able to pay their taxes and support their families.
Rather than introduce guidelines that would standardise street vending in Nigeria, the federal, state and local government officials prefer the current ‘lawless’ system which criminalises commercial activity and allows enforcers to loot food items under the pretext of seizure to satisfy their families of puff-puff eaters and mineral water guzzlers.
In the same vein, local restaurants specialising in our own delicacies are always chased around by the officials instead of introducing policies that would enable them hire more workers and prosper. In other climes, government would come to your aid if you have the capacity to employ more people.
In the present system, our government loses the tax revenue it could have legitimately collected from the vendors and they in turn are unable to meet their basic needs, joining the already bloated queue of the under-employed.
The same ‘lawless’ situation applies to taxi parks. In the modern city of Abuja, there is no taxi park created by government. The taxi drivers themselves are the ones who, based on experience of passenger movement, create parks arbitrarily after which government officials show up for bribes or collections of fees of indeterminate destination. The same thing has happened in the case of bus stops which are currently being constructed in various parts of the federal capital. How did we build a road network without bus stops in the first place? Corruption!
Do you know that you can do your private business from your house as long as it isn’t thriving? Once it seems to be doing well and you’re employing people, government officials show up with policemen in tow to reel out the number of laws you have contravened by employing people in a residential area! And it doesn’t matter that your business is not a nuisance to the environment.
I am aware the World Bank is happy with the progress Nigeria is making in the Ease of Doing Business index. For example, we are credited with making huge progress in the areas of starting a business, getting credit, dealing with construction permits, registering property, paying taxes, protecting minority investors, etc. Nigeria still ranks 145 globally with Lagos as the sample entity.
The Buhari administration has also made a number of interventions in removing strictures in the way of doing business in Nigeria. But I fear that while we indulge ourselves in the usual dogon turenci of the World Bank and the IMF whose indices are tailored to suit big business and protect their investments in various countries, we are losing sight of the area of small businesses that can quickly take our people off the row of unemployment if the right policies are introduced. To those down the ladder, we are not easing business; we are killing it.