World Bank ranks Kaduna first in property registration, contract enforcing

The World Bank has ranked Kaduna state number one in registering property and enforcing contracts in its latest ranking of doing business in Nigeria.

The bank also ranked Kaduna State fifth in ease of doing business and 17th in dealing with construction permits.

In its ‘Doing Business in Nigeria’ report released on Friday, the bank ranked the federal capital territory first in ease of doing business.

According to the report, Doing Business measures aspects of regulations that enables or hinders entrepreneurs in starting, operating or expanding a business and provides recommendations and good practices for improving the business environment.

“The 36 states and the FCT Abuja were measured on four indicators: Starting a business, which measures procedures, time, cost and paid-in minimum capital to start a business and registering a property, which measures procedures, time and cost to transfer a property,” the report read.

“Others are dealing with construction permit, which measures the procedures, time and cost to complete all formalities to build a warehouse; and enforcing contracts, that measures the time and cost of resolving a commercial dispute.

“These were in addition to quality of building regulation and its implementation, quality of land administration system and quality of judicial processes.”

The document indicates that in registering a property, Kaduna State scored 45.72 in distance to frontier (DTF) of global best practices and number one in the country, followed by Zamfara with 37.39 and Jigawa with 36.79 DTF score.

In enforcing contracts, Kaduna State also tops other states with 65.10 DTF score, closely followed by Bauchi State with a score of 63.99 and Jigawa with 63. 14.

The state, however, occupied the fifth position in the ease of doing business ranking after FCT, Lagos, Enugu, and Ogun states that occupy the first, second, third and fourth position respectively.

Rachid Benmessaoud, the bank’s country director, described Kaduna as the most improved state in the 2018 doing business report, having scored an average of 65.97 on the four indicators, the highest in the country.

“The state adopted a four-year development plan in 2016 focusing on promoting economic development and boosting private investment through reforming its business environment.

“From making its company incorporation process electronic to digitising its land registry to streamlining its construction permitting system and the results was impressive.

“As the report indicates, Kaduna State has improved its average DTF score by 11.21 percentage points, from 54.76 in 2014 to 65.97 in 2018 and now the top-ranked state in registering property and enforcing contracts.”

According to Benmessaoud, Kaduna’s effort is a good example that other states could follow.