The National Assembly is said to have compiled over 250 laws that may have been stifling businesses in Nigeria since independence. As the Rivers State government has announced plans to soon role out a business fast-tracking code that would simply tax payable persons in the state to save business operators.
The laws would be reviewed to make business transaction seamless and attract more investors, the lawmaker representing Ahoada East and Abual/Odual Federal Constituency, Jocelyne Betty Apiafi, revealed in Port Harcourt at the weekend.
The three-time lawmaker (People’s Democratic Party), stated this at the just-concluded PHCCIMA Business Luncheon at the Obi Wali International Conference Centre that the lawmakers had found that some laws were in conflict with others.
Apiafi told the large audience of investors and entrepreneurs that most laws were made without regard to side effects while some laws were made to address specific periods in Nigeria national life, which may have turned round to hunt businesses.
Apiafi, who read economics at two levels (Uniport and UST) with huge legislative interests in economy, women & vulnerable youth, who has targeted to ensure demonstration and passing of new bills to improve the lot of vulnerable persons, propose/support bills to improve the economy, said the House of Representatives was ahead in the exercise.
She said the law would be treated at the lower chamber that initiated and would move over to the upper chamber (Senate) for final attention, in keeping with the determination of the 8th NASS to play forefront roles in moving the economy forward.
The Rivers State government said at the luncheon that it had already reacted to the cry of businesses over numerous taxes by compiling genuine taxes and ways of collecting them without crushing bones.
Isaac Okemini, special adviser to Governor Nyesom Wike on Investment, was reacting to a business woman who waves layers of demand notices stuffed to office from different touts demanding for tax payment.
She lamented that some of the demands were strange and in high volumes to be paid, appealing for the intervention of the top government official. The deputy governor of the state, Ipalibo Harry Banigo, had earlier spoken glowingly about how the Wike administration was business-friendly.
Okemini, urged the business community to wait and see a business blueprint that was about to be rolled out by the administration, saying many would want to invest in the state.
A strong message of support and hope came from the zonal coordinator zone C, Nigerian Customs assistant controller-general, Azarema Abdulkadir, who said the state should not despair. He said Rivers was blessed with huge potentials that could now be made to spring into wealth to replace oil and gas.
He wondered why Nigeria was still rated so low in the face of computerisation of port operations.
The Bank of Industry (BoI) and Nigerian Shippers Council gave messages of what they could do to prop up business activities in Rivers State the more.
The president of the PH Chamber of Commerce, Emi Membre-Otaji, a medical doctor and oil and gas entrepreneur, said the business luncheon was created to bring the business community and the state government together to solve problems and create easier business environment.
