Professor Osinbajo has been adamant about his desire to see businesses work in Nigeria – especially small and medium scale businesses. Through the Ease of Doing Business reforms, the Office of the Vice President has established MSME Clinics across the country, worked with committes to harmonise the processes of registering a new company while reducing the amount of time it takes to register a company.

Less than a forthnight ago, as Acting President, signed three new executive orders one of which will harmonise the processes of seeking approval from government agencies, ministries and departments. A second reduced tourist and business visa processing time to 2 days.

Perhaps the most interesting of these orders is the one that prescribes punishment for erring public officials “where the relevant agency or official fails to communicate approval or rejection of an application for business registrations, certifications, waivers, licenses or permits within the time stipulated in the published list. Besides the threat of a public officer facing disciplinary proceedings, such applications – whether by a Nigerian or a foreigner – will be deemed approved once the timeline has elapsed.

Now, Professor Osinbajo has just proved that he has no intention of slowing down of these. He has just assented to two new bills that aim to ease MSMEs’ access to credit facilities. They are “the Secured Transactions in Movable Assets Act, 2017 (otherwise known as Collateral Registry Act) and the Credit Reporting Act, 2017.”

1/ AgP @ProfOsinbajo has signed into law two bills from @nassnigeria that'll facilitate access to more affordable credit for Nigerians.

— Presidency Nigeria (@NGRPresident) May 30, 2017

2/ The signed Bills are the Secured Transactions in Movable Assets Act, 2017 (Collateral Registry Act) and the Credit Reporting Act, 2017.

— Presidency Nigeria (@NGRPresident) May 30, 2017

The Secured Transactions in Movable Assets Act seeks to increase small and medium business owners’ chances of accessing loans by enabling them to register movable assets such as cars, equipment and accounts receivable in a “National Collateral Registry” where they’ll then be used for assessing eligibilit for loans.

The Office of the Acting President desribes ‘The Credit Reporting Act’ as an enactment that “provides for credit information sharing between Credit Bureaus (“companies that collect information relating to the credit ratings of individuals and makes it available to financial institutions, who need such information to determine an individual’s credit-worthiness and whether or not to grant loan applications to such individuals) and lenders (such as banks), as well as other institutions that provide services on credit such as telecommunication companies and retailers.”

Rightly, the Acting President considers access credit as one the major problems that MSMEs face in the running of their businesses. Before these laws, their eligibility to access loans was tied directly to their ownership of fixed assets and landed property.

With these laws now, the Acting President is confident that the goals of the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) set up by President Muhammadu Buhari in July 2016 and chaired by his own office to progressively make Nigeria an easier place for businesses to start and thrive” can be achieved.