The Registrar-General’s Department (RGD), has announced the upgrade of a new electronic system to aid in the processes of registering companies in the country and also improving ways of conducting business in Ghana.
A statement dated October 1, 2020, sighted by The Vaultz News noted that, this is in compliance with the Companies Act 2019 (Act 992) as well as the implementation of the Beneficial Ownership Register.
“The Registrar-General’s Department wishes to inform the Business Community and the general public that the department has deployed the upgraded electronic system in compliance with the provisions of the Companies Act 2019 (Act 992) as well as the implementation of the Beneficial Ownership Register effective Thursday, 1st October 2020.
“As a result of the introduction, the department will not receive new company registration applications on Thursday 1st October 2020 and Friday 2nd October 2020 to pave way for the testing and full operationalization of the new system”.
In light of this, the registrar general’s department will, however, receive new company registration applications from Monday, 5th October 2020.
Earlier in May, the Registrar-General’s Department (RGD) had announced the deletion of dormant companies and businesses, geared towards “purging the department’s electronic database of dormant companies and businesses in order to have an accurate, verifiable and credible company/business register”.
The exercise which begun in July 2020, became necessary as a result of the “Department’s database being over bloated with dormant Businesses”.
“As at December 2019, Seven Hundred and Forty Thousand, Six Hundred and Twenty-Eight (740,628) Companies/Businesses were registered in the old system between 1963 and 2011 but only Seventy Thousand Three Hundred and Forty-Six (70,346) Businesses representing 9.5 percent had been re-registered into the new database, leaving 670,283 Companies/Businesses representing 90.5 which have neither re-registered in the new electronic database nor filed their Annual Returns after registration with the Registrar-General”.
According to a release by the Registrar General’s Department, under the current system (eRegistrar), there were approximately 524,006 Companies and Businesses registered as at December 2019 and out of this figure 266,795 representing 50.91% have not filed their Renewals/Returns and are therefore not in good standing.
“We are by this First Notice, asking Companies/Businesses that have neither filed their Annual Returns/Renewals or Re-registered into the new electronic database (e-Registrar) to do so between now and December, 2020”.
“Consequently, the Department intends to publish Three Notices within a Seven (7) month period by which time Companies would have had enough time to comply with the new directives. Failure to heed to the notification by the Registrar would trigger the procedure for strike off under Section 289 of the Companies Act 992 and Section 50 of the Incorporated Private Partnerships Act, 1962 (Act 152)”.
According to the Business Names Act, 1962, once in every year, an individual or Company registered under this Act shall deliver to the Registrar for registration, a renewal notice in the prescribed form renewing the registration.
“However, a registration which is not renewed in accordance with this section shall lapse and the Registrar may remove from the Register, Business Names of persons whose registration have lapsed after the expiration of the period prescribed for renewal”.
