Business Registration Made Easy
At the end of March, I ran into three young men recently graduated from university. They were on the NYSC’s scheme. Their conversation that morning of eve of their passing-out-parade from the mandatory national youth service scheme was how they would love to create an enterprise and together grow it to significance in the nation’s business community – especially with strident advocacy for entrepreneurship and self-reliance among Nigerian youths. I wouldn’t have interfered in their close-chest deliberations but for discovering they were sharply different in their ethnicities as they were in appearance. While one is a Fulani from Sokoto, the other two were Igala, and Igbo. I was literally being served a perfect ‘unity in diversity’ – which is by the way, the very essence of the national scheme and for which Yakubu Gowon is esteemed.
Although the now inseparable friends had varied in religion and socialization, they had ultimately bonded on the platform of student unionism back on campus. Upon learning this and more through their conversations, I was sold on their quest to earn a legitimate living through venture team-up. But actualizing their dream of business partnership was the core of their task – as their voices quivered with concern over what they termed ‘difficulties in registering a business in Nigeria’. Like these youngsters, many Nigerians are unaware of what it takes to register a new business in their country.
Fascinated by the raw desire of those young Nigerians to stay together despite their heterogeneous backgrounds and the now growing emphasis on geopolitical zone and religion, I verbally joined their conversation and pledged my support to their dream by getting for them and other business upstarts, the right information from relevant government agencies. So this piece summarises my findings at CAC – the agency of government charged with the formation/registration of new businesses in Nigeria, in fulfilment of that pledge of mine to the business neophytes. Afteral, as a university teacher and journalist, my primary preoccupation is to steer the public aright. The political history of Nigeria still reverberates with the watershed of 2015 in which the citizens ‘conspiring’ for a change in their government, voted overwhelmingly at the polls. Indeed, several changes have since been recorded in the nation’s polity and corporate governance following that paradigm shift. For instance, the need to improve Nigeria’s rating on the international *Ease of Doing Business* ladder was a prime agenda of the then incoming government; and has since its inauguration three years ago, become a national crusade. Based on this therefore, the hard processes that use to characterize registration of new businesses and for which my young friends were afraid has since become history; because government has of recent made some pragmatic changes in this regard to alleviate the previous longstanding hurdles.
The sole responsibility of registering a business in Nigeria rests with a government agency called the Corporate Affairs Commission [CAC] with its head office in Abuja and its branch offices located in every state capital in Nigeria. And it is now convenient and cheap for people like my young friends to do business registration without travelling out of their locations.
This is made possible with the recent complete decentralization of the Commission’s operations which make their services at par with the head office, The Commission stays open to the public from 8.00am – 7.00pm every week day in Abuja, Lagos, Kaduna, Kano, Enugu and Port Harcourt offices; while the Help Desk further handles all sorts of telephone enquiry and complaints via the dedicated lines and e-mail.
Presently, founding a business in Nigeria simply starts with a person or a group of persons choosing a desired business name and approaching the CAC for its availability on their platform. Approval for reservation of a name shall be completed within 6 [six] hours upon submission of request. If such a name is available for registration, the Commission approves and reserves it for the promoter(s) for a period of 60 days within which the process of formal registration is expected to get underway. Completion of every type of registration is achieved within 24 hours of filing application.
I also learnt from stakeholders that the Commission has uploaded the names of all registered Companies, Business Names, Incorporated Trustees as well as those undergoing registration on its website. The information is updated daily to enable members of the public to confirm the name, registration number and date of registration for every Company, Business Name and Incorporated Trustees at no cost. This initiative is meant to reduce instances of name denial and also make name search process much easier and cheaper.
Current guidelines for all registration processes are available on the Commission’s website – which contains the required forms and documents that the registration seekers must provide and also the various fees payable as filling fees or stamp duty where applicable Of recent, the Commission has consolidated all its registration forms – a new form [CAC 1.1] has been introduced to replace the several forms hitherto for registration. Apart from the convenience of having all the information in one document, the consolidation has drastically reduced registration fee; especially as it has to do with certified true copy [CTC]. Before now, it was compulsory that promoters of a business name engage the services of either a CAC accredited agents (Lawyers, Accountants and Chattered Secretaries) to register such a company on their behalf. But in the new order, anybody register their business with Commission directly by themselves provided they have valid identifications such as the permanent voter’s card, international passport, national identity card, or driver’s license.
This new order ensures that expenses incurred by business registration seekers are reduced. Besides this, all the fees charged by the Commission for its services have been reduced by half for the small and medium-size businesses; and 25% reduction for the big businesses. This was done to encourage small businesses and support government efforts on ease of doing business.
Barr Olufemi Ajala, Lead Counsel at Integrity Chambers, lauded the Commission for the reforms. According to him, many of the hassles previously experienced by prospective business subscribers have now been eliminated through information communication technology (ICT) into the system. By this, CAC having deployed the new company registration portal [CRP] ensures that customers now enjoy unfettered virtual transaction through its user-friendly portal.
The lawyer revealed that prospective customers can now achieve their business registration bids by logging in on a 24-hours basis to this new portal and pay the prescribed fees via such e-payments platforms like Verve, Master Card, Visa etc from the comfort of their homes, offices or just about any location and still achieve their target as if they were physically present at the CAC offices.” Also, most business owners have hailed the new company registration portal for simplifying the business registration process as timesaving.
Further inquiries revealed that in order to get the optimal benefits of the Companies Registration Portal and ease the process of company registration, the Commission has integrated the portal with the Electronic Stamp Duty Portal of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS). It was disclosed that the e-stamping system has cancelled the physical submission of documents to FIRS for assessment and manual stamping at the various Stamp Duty Offices across Nigeria.
The Acting Registrar-General of CAC, Lady Azuka Azinge has disclosed that once the stamp duty is paid through an e-platform, customers fill in the application form and the Memorandum and Article of Association on the CRP.
“They are then required to download, complete and sign registration forms as well as the Memorandum and Articles of Association. “Upon such execution, the documents are then scanned and uploaded through the document upload interface together with all relevant documents including the means of identification of the individual subscribers. Of interest is that proficiency certificates hitherto required for certain class of registrations have been removed. This has made registration of such entities much easier and less cumbersome; and has also resolved conflict and disagreements among new business subscribers.
To ensure seamless operation of the portal and zero downtime, the Commission has fully outsourced the hosting of its main database and operating software to *Main-One Data Centre* in Lagos. This is to ensure 99% uptime and efficient registration services on a 24/7 basis” she said.
Mallam Yakubu Ahmed, a former Kano-based lawyer, praised the developmentwhile re calling his average three round trips per week to the FCT to xecute his clients’ briefs at the Commission.
The Commission is constantly seeking ways to enhance chances of new businesses wanting formal registration – especially those in the small scale category through sensitization at various forums..
The interest of existing and prospective customers are constantly upheld – with a view to promoting flexibility, the Commission has undertaken a comprehensive review of the Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) to bring it at par with global best practices in Company Regulation and administration. The Senate has passed the Amendment Bill which is currently before the House of Representatives for passage before Presidential assent.
According to some longstanding patrons of CAC, one of their concerns has been the possibility of a customer losing his records at the Commission without trace – due to the large volume of documents it has handled from its inception. In a reaction to this concern, and in order to ensure the integrity of its database and provide for easy retrieval of the registration record for ease of access by staff and customers electronically, the Commission has embarked on rapid digitalization of all the legacy records into suitable electronic formats.’’ The on-going digitalization of legacy records when completed, will serve the convenience of CAC’s customers and stakeholders; and would enable the general public carry out searches and due diligence electronically. Once completed, real online services can be conveniently extended to post registration services.