CAC to reduce business registration period to 6 hours

The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), in a bid to ease the process of registering a business name, has advanced its moves to address some of the challenges usually encountered by people in the course of registering their businesses. This was revealed by Azuka Azinge, the acting Registrar General of the Commission.

While speaking at the annual conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Acting Registrar-General revealed that the commission is close to ensuring the registration of business names within a period of four to six hours.

Azinge further disclosed that the CAC is committed to deploying a more robust application to drastically improve the situation. She further hinted plans by the commission to deploy an application that would ensure self-generation of certificates.

To simplify business registration and make it cheaper, Azinge had announced that the commission was considering lowering the cost of registering small businesses.

Azinge through the commission’s Deputy Director, Public Affairs, Moses Adaguusu, said the cost for registration would soon go for N5,500 instead of the N10,500.

Contrary to Azinge’s statement that the Commission is lowering the registration fee, Daily Trust reports that the Commission maintained that the cost of Business Name registration remains N10,500 and not N5,500.

The commission had also concluded plans in February 2018, to close manual registration of businesses and corporations in all its remaining locations nationwide. CAC’s Head of Public Affairs, Godfrey Ike, disclosed this during a two-day strategic management planning retreat. He said the action became necessary to enable the commission to extend its online services across the country.

It would be recalled that as part of efforts to enhance the ease of doing business in Nigeria, the commission announced some far-reaching decisions, part of which is the company incorporation in 24 hours policy.

About CAC

The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) was established by the Companies and Allied Matters Act, which was promulgated in 1990 to regulate the formation and management of companies in Nigeria.

The establishment of the CAC as an autonomous body was as a result of the perceived inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the erstwhile Company Registry, a department within the Federal Ministry of Commerce and Tourism.