The Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) has lauded the National Economic Council (NEC) for endorsing the 750million dollars World Bank-backed State Action on Business Enabling Reforms (SABER) program.

This was made known in a statement by Dr. Jumoke Oduwole, Special Adviser to the President on Ease of Doing Business and Secretary PEBEC, in Abuja.

According to her, the 750million dollars financing amounts to 36 percent of the two billion dollars Government SABER program (2022 – 2025), which represents the aggregate recurrent expenditure of key ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) at the federal and state levels across the country.

“The SABER program is a three-year performance-based intervention jointly designed by the World Bank Technical team and the PEBEC Secretariat with support from the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning (FMFBNP).

“Home Finance Department and the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) Secretariat. It further gives expression to the Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) mandate articulated in the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP).

” The program was subsequently retained in the National Development Plan (NDP), aimed at generating 21 million full-time jobs and lifting 35 million people out of poverty by 2025,” Oduwole said.

The PEBEC secretary further explained that the program was designed to deliver concrete results across four reform areas with eight Disbursement Link Indicators.

These, Oduwole said, covered improving land administration and land investment process; improving the business enabling infrastructure; increasing sustainable large-scale investments; and enabling firm operations.

“All participating states and the FCT could potentially receive a maximum of 52.5 million dollars during the three-year period.

“In addition to the already-existing PEBEC-NEC subnational intervention, the SABER program seeks to provide additional incentives, such as using results-based financing targeted at improving the business environment and facilitating crowding in of private sector investments at scale.

“The eligibility criteria for the program include developing an annual action plan with private sector collaborators to be approved by the State Executive Council and published online.

“Recommendations from the 2nd Subnational EoDB Report, due to be released in October 2022, are also expected to be considered.

“The PEBEC had earlier presented the SABER program at an expanded PEBEC meeting held on August 16, 2022, chaired by the Vice President with the chairpersons of the EoDB Councils from various states across the country in attendance.” She said.

Oduwole added that the council had been collaborating with the World Bank since November 2019 to develop the SABER program.

She explained that the SABER program consists of two main areas: 730 million dollars Programme-for-Results (PforR) and 20 million dollars for Technical Assistance.

It was established in July 2016 by President Muhammadu Buhari to remove critical bottlenecks and bureaucratic constraints to doing business in Nigeria.