Nigeria’s Corporate Affairs Commission, CAC, has devised a way of checkmating corruption perpetrated during registrations of companies through the development of a digital beneficial ownership Registrar platform.
The Registrar-General, CAC, Garba Abubakar stated this at a training Workshop on the use of the “Beneficial Ownership Registrar Kano state northwestern Nigeria.
He said the platform encourages open disclosure beyond company names to owners making it easy for suspected entities to be properly investigated by security operatives and agencies..
“Corruption and illicit financial flows, especially money laundering are carried out using corporate bodies as vehicles. Companies file in annual returns, and procurements are done using companies but there is a limit to a transaction an individual can carry out
“The new system provides information about the true owners of these companies. When you want to investigate any company or the real owners, the registrar makes it easy.
“Any time that the EFCC, ICPC, the Police, media and CSOs want to investigate any company, they don’t need to come to the CAC, they can just log into the website and get the information.
According to him, the site also eradicates cloning of names, photographs as well as usage of names of unborn children during registration of companies, as the nation’s national Identity management system, NIN; data has been incorporated into the platform.
He warned that false declaration of identities during company registrations attracts penalties urging lawyers who register companies for people to be careful.
He said the CAC is set to delist over 100,000 companies for not filing their annual returns to the agency as required by the law
“Any company not filing its returns is considered not in operation or inactive. The names of the companies will soon be published on the Commission’s website and they will be given four weeks within which to respond, failure of which, they will be struck off the CAC data.
He emphasised that after the first batch, another set of defaulting companies will also be compiled.
He, however, said the companies to have opportunities to re-apply and be relisted, if they meet necessary requirements in the long run.
Dominica Nwabufo
