Jemima Oware, the Registrar of Companies, has disclosed that professional bodies are required to register their organizations and memberships with the Registrar of Companies in order to maintain their status as legally recognized professional entities.
According to her, while it is a provision of the Constitution, it is frequently disregarded, adding that currently, only 10 professional organisations have renewed their status on the Registrar of Companies’ record despite the fact that there are 85 of them today.
“We came to meet this as far back as 1963 when we started registering various bodies. The professional bodies was one of them, and so it just clearly shows that there wasn’t much light on that particular area.
“And the law is very clear, it’s NRCD 147. If you are supposed to register professional bodies in Ghana, you must have about 50 members and they should all be professionals. That means, you must be giving them certificates before you even come register them with us. Now once you bring them and register them, you’re supposed to be coming with the list of the academic qualifications of your professionals.”
Jemima Oware
She clarified that the failure to register or renew an organization’s status on the register after expiration means that one’s professional body is no longer recognized as such by the law.
“Not only that, the law is very clear that if we do not register you and renew your membership of that professional body, it lapses. And this is something that we hadn’t really put much emphasis on. It’s not the registrar of company stretching the mandate, it’s within the law. And you’re supposed to do this before the end of January of every particular year.”
Jemima Oware
The Registrar of companies further explained that professional bodies are mandated to update their status on the registry if they change their name, add new members, or lose members.
“So with all these professional bodies, when we had the meeting, it turned out some hadn’t even registered with us as professional bodies and were using the name, some had changed their names and they had not updated us, some had dead professionals on our register and had not informed us about it. So every year, the duty of the professional bodies, the executives, is to bring a list of professionals in good standing.”
Jemima Oware
She added that the mandate to oversee the activities of professionals, the code of ethics and all that, lies with one’s professional body and not the registrar of comapnies.
“And that is why we’re saying that you need to pay 30 cedis for each professional. So as you’re coming to us with your constitution and your charter and your code of ethics, and your list of professionals with their academic qualifications – I don’t really need your certificates but you should list it for us – we’ll enter it into our register, every year before the end of January come back and update us whether the name is still the same, whether you’ve moved offices, whether the professionals have left.
“If you don’t do that and we don’t update the professionals in our register, the law is very clear, it lapses. Lapses means you are not recognized as a professional.”
Jemima Oware
Swift, Stress Free Registration Of Companies Next Year
More so, Mrs. Oware assured companies that by early next year, with the introduction of a new software purposely built to fast track the process, it will be possible to fully register one’s organization within 24 hours.
She claimed that people have complained about the present software’s lack of user friendliness.
“We currently have a software in place that can do that online registration, but what happens is people don’t find it being user friendly and also people don’t like to do it online. They like to come and look into somebody’s face and give money to somebody.”
Jemima Oware
According to her, one of the major issues with paper registration that slows down work is that the majority of people arrive to the offices of the Registrar of Companies without completely adhering to the rules.
“Some will come and haven’t even filled the forms. Some will come and they don’t have a digital address, some will come and they don’t have an NIA card. So the key thing is let’s start counting from the time you complete all the requirements and then we can say confidently that within a day we can give you the business registration certificate.”
Jemima Oware
Madam Oware communicated that Registrar of Companies will soon release a new software that, hopefully, won’t have any of the problems the current software does in order to guarantee a flawless and enjoyable experience for business owners in the future.
“The issue in reality though is that the current software has challenges and nobody denies that fact. So you could come in and do everything within a day, but you won’t get it within the day because possibly the system has shut down for one reason or the other or one of the users of the system, maybe the lawyer or the company inspector does not approve it within the time they’re supposed to approve it – because there’s so many other things that are being done and that is why we’re now going to move a step further and come out with a new software.
“We’re trusting God. You would not need to walk into our offices with paper as currently people are walking in and queuing at the bank to pay and scan, and you know all those things, it will be a thing of the past.”
Jemima Oware
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