The Registrar General of the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), Alhaji Garba Abubakar, has said the commission will soon take over the publication of information of intending trustees of companies to increase transparency in the registration process.
Alhaji Abubakar made this disclosure in Abuja yesterday when he received the management of Media Trust Limited, led by its Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Mannir Dan Ali, during the team’s courtesy visit to his office,
He said at the moment CAC had ceded the responsibility to publicise the information to the trustees and those applying to register them.
Abubakar explained that, “However, it is the responsibility of the CAC to make that publication. In the course of the discharge of our responsibilities, we have realised that most applicants don’t use the right media to publicise in an attempt to suppress the information from those who may object to such registration.
“For the sake of transparency, the commission is going to take over the responsibility for such publications.”
He further said the commission had commenced a general review of its checklists and guidelines to make them more robust and in line with ease of doing business.
He cited some situation whereby applicants included individuals convicted of fraud or dishonesty as company trustees against the provisions of the Company and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) that such convicted persons cannot be trustees within five years of their conviction, and added that if not for the due diligence of the staff of CAC, it would not be discovered.
Abubakar further said sometimes some of the organisations were set up as rival organisations by some aggrieved members of the parent organisation, while in some instances, they tried to use names that were closely similar or to make it as a semblance of a branch of the parent company, whereas the consent of the parent body was not usually obtained for that purpose.
