Stakeholders Advocate Collaboration For Effective Regulations

Stakeholders in the integrated marketing communications, as well as allied industry, have advocated collaboration between regulatory agencies and industry players for effective and efficient regulations. This call was made at the Advertisers Association of Nigeria, (ADVAN) Industry Dialogue 2022 in Lagos recently.

The 2022 ADVAN Industry Dialogue whose keynote speaker was Dr Jumoke Oduwole, Special Adviser to the President on Ease of Doing Business in Nigeria, spoke on the topic themed: the role of government regulations in the ease of doing business in Nigeria.

Speaking on the need for collaboration, Mrs Oduwole said that our collaboration with the private sector has continued to make it possible for us to know where the shoe pinches and creates a constant flow of ideas for pragmatic interventions.

While speaking she said that “It gratifying to note that in the last three decades since its establishment in 1992, with top 100 companies in Nigeria as 11 pages of the newspapers continued to attempt to articulate something more.

“It appeared that in addition to the known formal taxes, levies and charges, MSMEs bear multiple unquantified costs (both official and unofficial) associated with regulatory compliance from several government agencies, which, when taken cumulatively, significantly impact the business’ bottom line, hindering their ability to plough back such revenue into productive ventures.”

The Special Adviser to the President on Ease of Doing Business in her said, “Empirical evidence from the pilot survey confirmed earlier anecdotal feedback by showing that 51 per cent of MSMEs paid 12 unofficial fees for regulatory services. The survey equally revealed that actual compliance cost was higher than officially stated costs, while process timelines overshot timelines were published. It was also established that there is a huge communication gap between regulators and MSMEs.”

Therefore, speaking directly to the integrated marketing communication industry, Mrs Oduwole stated that bringing this all home to today’s dialogue, by our assessment, the advertising industry in Nigeria is regulated by a combination of federal laws, state and possibly local government laws, with other subsidiary legislation including regulations and guidelines. There are at least five regulatory agencies involved in regulating advertising.

According to her, “I am confident that this dialogue will contribute significantly to the smoothening any rough edges in the relationship between regulators and the advertising community as a whole going forward.”

Dr Fadolapo the Registrar of APCON during the panel discussion, explained that the new Advertising Standard of Practice as a means to an end, which he explained was to promote fairness and equity in the Industry.

The ADVAN President, Mr Uwubanmwen in his remark thanked the keynote speaker for honouring the Association’s invitation to speak on this burning issue as well as other government regulatory agencies and the head of advertising sectoral groups who we presented.

“We are not here to discuss AISOP. ADVAN members have multiple regulators; therefore, APCON cannot be the only headache we have. We are regulated by NAFDAC, SON, APCON, so we have invited the expert in the ease of doing business to share knowledge with us,” he said.