Registrar of the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), Alhaji Garba Abubakar, has said that the agency has listed 100,000 companies to be delisted from the Commission’s register for not publishing returns to the government.
He made this known on Thursday in Kano while addressing members of the Civil Society, the Media and other Security Agencies on the use of Beneficial Ownership Register initiatives
According to him, “The law is clear on the procedures, insisting that any company not filing its returns is considered not in operation or inactive and is liable to be struck out”.
Alhaji Abubakar however disclosed that the names of the affected companies will soon be published on the Commission’s website and that they will be given four weeks within which to respond, failure of which, they will be struck off the CAC data.
He further added that after the first 100,000 companies are delisted, another batch of no fewer than 100,000 defaulting companies will be compiled.
“The consequences of striking out are like a lost property but they are at liberty to reapply on the register to be relisted and if they are not relisted within the next ten years, whatever property they have is lost,” he said.
He stated that the register is not an end in itself but a means to an end, especially as an avenue to check financial crimes carried out using corporate bodies.
“You will agree with me that most procurements are done using companies but the new system provides information about the true owners of these companies so it makes it easier for investigators to know the true owners of these companies, the natural persons that truly control the companies,” he added.
He said the programme is for civil society, law environment agencies, media and other stakeholders on the issue of beneficiary ownership registrar.
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