Linda Quao, Assistant Registrar at the Registrar General
The Registrar General’s Department (RGD) has warned managers and owners of companies against hiring unqualified persons as secretaries for their companies.
According to the Assistant Registrar at RGD, Linda Quao, hiring the service of unqualified secretaries does not pose risk to a company but the wider economy.
Ms. Quao who was speaking at a workshop on the new Company Registration Act organized by the Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) in Accra, explained that the new Company Act 992 prohibits companies from appointing unqualified persons as secretaries.
“Now it is no more your wife, your house help, your driver, and anyone who is not qualified. The duty of a company’s secretary is very serious, so from now onwards, you must note that you need to be qualified to be able to do that,” she said.
Ideally, the law defines a qualify secretary as who has acquired a professional qualification or tertiary level of education with an offering in Company Law Practice and Administration.
The Act 992, which replaced the 1963’s Act ‘179’, was finalised on May 2, 2019, but received Presidential assent on August 2, 2019.
It introduces a more robust law to offer better governance practices within a more efficient regulatory environment and seeks to promote transparency with the ease of doing business, she said.
“A person shall not be appointed as a director unless that person before the appointment makes a statutory declaration to the company that five years preceding the application for incorporation, was not charged with or convicted of a criminal offense involving fraud or dishonesty,” she said with regards to the appointment of companies’ directors.
Explaining further, she said a director is someone who works in the interest of the company to protect its assets and promote the purposes for which the business was established in a manner that is faithful, diligent and ordinarily skillful or be held responsible for his or her actions or inactions.
For his part, Frederick Adu Amoako, the Chief Operations Officer at GNCCI, noted that the workshop forms part of efforts by the Chamber to promote best practices among the business community.
He added, “I am of the firm conviction that the new Act will help improve the ease of doing business in Ghana, enhance Corporate Governance Regulatory Framework and reduce the cost of ensuring compliance for business.”
