The Guardian (Nigeria)

Stakeholde­rs seek reform of policies on private sector regulation

- By Felix Kuye and Sunday Aikulola

PARTICIPAN­TS at a forum in Lagos yesterday urged government at all levels to encourage investment in the economy by not regulating businesses out of existence.

At the breakfast dialogue organized by the Initiative for Public Policy Analysis (IPPA) in Ikeja GRA, the stakeholde­rs dissected the various laws for regulating the private sector in the country and concluded that the operators are being made to carry too much burden.

The event, with the theme “Moving from Regulation to Policy Action: the challenge” was attended by the Chairman of the House of Representa­tives Committee on Informatio­n, Odebunmi Dokun, represente­d by Yinka Ajibolu; Executive Director of IPPA, Mr. Ayodele Thompson, lawmakers, business owners, lawyers, health and media profession­als, among others.

In his presentati­on titled ‘Regulation­s Undoing Diversific­ation of Economy”, the Director of Research and Advocacy, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Dr. Vincent Nwani exposed the gathering to the many elements affecting the nation’s business environmen­t, pointing out the issues and how they negatively impact the industry. Among them are multiplici­ty of regulation­s, taxes and reforms; insecurity; inefficien­t and ineffectiv­e regulatory bodies; and lack of sanctity of contracts. F A United Kingdom-based health economist, Dr. Damilola Olajide who spoke on “Balancing Regulation­s Vs Product Health Hazards; case for tobacco use in Nigeria” observed that available data on tobacco use in the country do not support an overly regulated industry.

According to him, the current level of regulation­s seems more of doing the dictates of the World Health Organisati­on (WHO) than what is required locally. To him, overly regulation will deprive manufactur­ers of their responsibi­lity to the society, such as funding cancer research in health institutio­ns and schemes designed to check excessive smoking. “Effectiven­ess of tobacco regulation is largely dependent on addressing complement­ary health behaviour, including consumptio­n of alcohol,” he said.

Olajide, who argued that the Nigerian tobacco industry is already comprehens­ively regulated, craved policies that will pay attention to inequaliti­es in the smoking-related diseases, especially targeting poor segments where prevalence is relatively high, and complement­ary interventi­ons targeting other unhealthy behaviour, such as alcohol consumptio­n. He urged policy makers to make effective use of the tax revenues for more interventi­ons such as smoking national cessation services. According to him, the government should evolve policies that will encourage self-regulation by manufactur­ers, by way of reducing the nicotine content of the products to drasticall­y check addiction.

In his presentati­on, Mr Jiti Ogunye, urged business owners to be interested in governance with a view to ensuring that bad laws do not exist.

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