LCCI moves to protect entrepreneurs’ rights

As the protection of rights and privileges of entrepreneurs and investors begin to take centre stage on the global scene, the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) is pushing to lead an advocacy engagement to domesticate same in the country.

The rights of entrepreneurs are attracting attention at the World Chamber Federation. This stems from incessant abuses of rights of entrepreneurs and investors in various climes, as many of them are subjected to harassment by host communities, multiple taxation and unfair competitions, among others.

In Nigeria, entrepreneurs and start-up owners often pay similar taxes in many states or under various names. Each of the regulatory agencies also has its own registration and regular inspection fees, while youths in host communities often make various demands that do not augur well for businesses.

Equally true is the fact that businesses are shut without prior notice to owners in many parts of the country, just as some individual businesses are conditioned to have unfair advantage over others in some markets.

“The LCCI intends to lead the advocacy engagement to domesticate this initiative,” Remi Bello, president, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) said, during the chamber’s first quarter economic review held Wednesday in Lagos.

“Over the years, businesses have been subjected to all manner of adverse policies, impunity by regulatory agencies as well as arbitrariness in the formulation of economic policies,” Bello observed.

“Investors need protection from policy inconsistency, arbitrary levies and charges, multiple taxation, abuse of monopoly powers and absence of level playing field,” he added. 

The LCCI helmsman observed that there have been instances of policies and regulations introduced at the whims and caprices of policy makers, regulators and bureaucrats. He said the chamber needs to address this in order to further bring some added value to the investment environment.

He stressed that the vision of the chamber is to build an advocacy coalition to ensure enabling legislation to protect the rights of entrepreneurs.

Similarly, the chamber called for harmonisation of taxes to reduce the incidences of payment of multiplicity of taxes borne by businesses.

“We recall that there have been various steps taken at various levels especially by the Joint Tax Board to streamline taxes and levies in the country, but this still remains a major problem for many firms,” Bello stressed.

According to him, this is more pronounced at the local government level where it is difficult to know exactly the number of taxes payable by investors.

“As we transit into a new political dispensation, we implore the state and local governments to look closely at this matter. It would be better to harmonise these various levies to a maximum of three for ease of compliance and administration,” he recommended.

The Federal Government recently inaugurated the Development Bank of Nigeria with a start-up capital $1.5 billion. The MSMEs will become the major beneficiaries of the bank.There is also the Nigerian Mortgage Refinancing Company which was established to boost the housing sector.

The Development Bank of Nigeria is structured to provide wholesale development finance.  Following this move, the chamber said it is worried over the seeming duplication of developing finance institutions which could result in the increase in overhead expenditure in the delivery of development finance in the economy.

“Already we have the Bank of Industry which in itself was a product of merger of similar institutions in the past. It is critical to review these initiatives to avoid overlaps and duplications of institutions in the development finance space running costs and provide more resources for lending,” Bello said.

ODINAKA ANUDU