Oduwole tasks NAFDAC, APCON on synergy
By Ibidunni Banjoko
Dr. Jumoke Oduwole, Special Adviser to the President on Ease of Doing Business and Secretary to the President Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC), has advised the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) to work in synergy in order to foster an enabling environment for business owners.
She disclosed this during the Industry Dialogue organised by Advertisers’ Association of Nigeria (ADVAN), held recently in Lagos.
Highlighting the need for synergy between NAFDAC and APCON, Oduwole said: “We all run one government, but private companies have repeatedly complained about going from one office to another to get things done. And that is part of what PEBEC was indeed instituted, to make sure that private companies don’t need to dance around from office to office.”
She further said: “There are a lot of overlapping responsibilities to enable legislation beyond what we have personally. The legislation passed at the National Assembly that gives agencies overlapping responsibilities, how do we make them function? How do we make them grow? At PEBEC the executive owner looks at the situation executively, administratively and agencies are asked to work collaboratively?”
Oduwole emphasized that NAFDAC can do their checking at the back-end in collaboration with APCON without letting people know. “They just need to extend their time of approval.”
She advised the government parastatals to encourage automation for excellence and transparency.
According to her, the long and short of the mandate of PEBEC was simply to find ways of changing the growing reputation of Nigeria as a challenging business environment, to remove the bottlenecks and to change the orientation of regulatory authorities and public servants who interface with businesses seeking government licenses, approvals and other regulatory requirements.
“PEBEC was launched to create a better enabling environment for businesses, citizens, and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises’ (MSMEs) operation in Nigeria,” she added.
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