‘Unserious last minute' attitude of Ghanaians unacceptable – Registrar-General fumes

Jemima Oware, Registrar-General, has condemned the attitude and posture of most businesses and business owners in the country towards initiatives of her outfit, ABC News Ghana can report.

The Register General’s Department in 2018 gave a grace period of close to 6 months to allow companies update their records and file their annual returns as stipulated by law.

This directive elapsed on Tuesday, April 30, 2019 but not without some drama. It was characterised by long, winding queues as owners and representatives of affected businesses thronged the offices of the Registrar-General to beat the deadline.

Jemima Oware disclosed in an interview that even though the lack of financial capacity could be a reason, the attitude of Ghanaians to wait for the last minute was also to account for the long queues and last minute pressure witnessed at the office.

She suggested that people are generally unserious towards these kinds of initiatives and interventions which improves service delivery and business deliverables.

“In the nature of Ghanaians of always waiting to the last minute before we come out and comply with just simply directives. This would not have happen” she stated in an interview monitored by ABC News Ghana.

The Registrar General further indicated that “It could be one of the reasons. It could also be financially they weren’t up to it. Most importantly I think it is our attitude. We do not take such things seriously. At the end of the day, it is not the money that the department is after, we are more concerned about you updating us on the current status of your business. In the nature of Ghanaians always waiting to the last minute before we come out and comply with just simple directives. This would not have happen.”

Jemima Oware explained that the essence is to update her outfit of changes that may have occurred in the life span of the company.

The information of the companies will be submitted onto an electronic platform that will improve the ease of doing business.

“You can register a company say for the last ten years. There has been so many changes going on such as change of directors, change of shareholders and even change of place of registered business. Your duty through the filing of yearly returns is to update us with that information,” the Registrar General noted.

The Registrar General’s Department (RDG) on Tuesday, October 16 2018 entreated all existing Companies who registered between 1963 to October, 2011 to update their records onto its new electronic database-registrar.

It said companies that were Limited by Shares, limited by Guarantee, Partnerships, External Companies, Business Names and Subsidiary Business Names (SBN), Auditing and Accounting Firms that have not yet updated their records into the Department’s new electronic database e-Registrar to do so by Tuesday April 30, 2019.

ABC News Ghana understands that according to the statement, all affected entities, Directors, Shareholders, Secretaries, and Auditors of companies, all Partners of Partnerships, all local Managers of External Companies and all Sole Proprietors of Business Names are to obtain Individual Tax Identification Numbers (TIN).

Information required focuses on the nature of business, current office location, current telephone numbers and ownership of the entities which the department would not have in its database.

Per the timelines issued by the Registrar General’s Department, the Registrar of Companies would start the process of striking out the names of companies, partnership and businesses that failed to comply with the directive by Monday May 6, 2019.