Nigeria's CAC adopts electronic distribution of company certificates

As from August 10, 2020, the Corporate Affairs Commission [CAC] will commence full implementation of an electronic system for company registration.With the new development, companies’ registration certificates would henceforth be sent to customers through courier or by electronic service of their choice as against the former practice where the firms come to the commission to physically collect their certificates.

Last week Thursday, some lawyer customers besieged the CAC headquarters in Abuja to protest against the commission’s new method of distributing certificates that they claimed was not favourable.

The Registrar-General and Chief Executive, CAC, Garba Abubakar, who spoke to journalists in Abuja at weekend on some of the reforms being implemented under his leadership, said the new method was adopted to avoid physical contact with clients.

“Based on global standards, company registrations are done electronically without physical presence. The era when lawyers besiege the commission to conduct such transactions is over,” he said.

According to Abubakar, the new electronic system will help to speed up the registration process as well as protect the integrity of documents issued by the CAC.

“The new system is also part of measures to comply with the COVID-19 protocols on physical distancing. These are unusual times as the country has been shut for over two months. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, things have not returned to normal because our system is not fully electronic. We have to interface with customers as we are expected to carry out registration. With the restrictions, it is almost impossible to provide full services the way we did in the past.’He said the CAC had also eliminated the process of searching records manually, following the discovery that it was being compromised.

Abubakar disclosed that two weeks ago, two lawyers were caught at the commission tampering with documents during the process of manual searches. On why CAC delisted Ohanaeze Ndigbo cultural organization, the commission’s boss said it was due to a security report.

‘’We wrote to the security agencies and were told that the organization was yet to get security clearance. Also, we are telling similar organizations such as the South South, Middle Belt, Arewa and North East fora to make sure they get security clearance before we can register them.’’

Source: Guardian