The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) says it will be possible for companies in Nigeria to be registered within three hours, before the end of 2021.
The commission tweeted this on Sunday via its verified Twitter handle.
It said, Garba Abubakar, the commission’s registrar-general, gave this indication at a recent dinner in honour of the chairman, governing board, CAC and Nigeria’s Ambassador-designate to Spain, Ademola Seriki.
The commission announced last December the upgrade of its online registration portal for business.
It said the upgrade would include features that allow the automation of key services and processes in line with the federal government’s effort to Nigeria’s ease of doing business.
Newsmen had reported how the new regulation protocol has left businesses in the country stranded for months.
According to the commission, the new development follows the deployment of an end to end registration module which is expected to end before the end of 2021.
It said “the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) says following the successful deployment of an end-to-end registration module, it is now prioritizing the reduction of the registration circle for new companies to just 3 hours before the end of the year 2021,”
To achieve the target, Abubakar said the Commission was making arrangements to empower over 400 approving officers with working tools to process and approve registration applications either from home or anywhere necessary.
He noted that the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic adversely hampered CAC’s delivery timeline.
However, he said the CAC was resolutely committed to serving its customers despite being forced to operate with less than 50 per cent of its workforce.
He revealed that some of the new initiatives coming on board include the mandatory requirement for obtaining a letter of good standing from the CAC for procurement purposes.
Under the arrangement, he said companies bidding for government contracts must obtain a letter of good standing from the commission in a bid to further strengthen the fight against corruption.
Seriki revealed that a new product, Optional Notification Alert System, was also being prioritised and that under the arrangement companies can elect to be notified whenever changes were made in their structure at the CAC.
