More confusion and anxiety are brewing since last two weeks Monday when the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) struck out manual company registration in five states of the federation including Abuja, Enugu, Kano, Kaduna, Lagos, and Port-Harcourt.
It would be recalled that federal government has directed the Corporate Affairs Commission to commence full online application process, as well as eliminate the need to hire a lawyer to register a business.
In addition, the number of days required to register a business has now been reduced from 10 to two.
These reforms, according to the action plan is expected to save the MSMEs about N2.6bn in business registration costs annually and reduce the time it would take to travel to the CAC to perfect business registration by 116,000 minutes daily.
However, a top official of the association of lawyers licenced by CAC as registration consultants confided in Business Hilights on Weekend that since the kickoff of the new digital registration on the CAC’s e-portal, not an appreciable number of consultants or applicant has been able to access the portal due to repeated hang up and inability to open for registration documentation as now demanded by latest regulation.
The official who pleaded anonymity revealed that “the situation is now worst as some of our members and colleagues who cannot face the frustrations are now relocating to other states that are yet to join in the digital process”.
“My brother, I want to tell the bitter truth as to what is happening since CAC switched to e-portal registration. Lawyers are now filing jobs outside Abuja, Enugu, Port Harcourt, Kano, Kaduna and Lagos that are currently foreclosed for manual filing.
He said “The Commission is saying no going back and that online registration has come to stay without considering whether the e-portal is effective or not”.
It would be recalled that the Registrar-General of the commission, Bello Mahmud had told journalists in Abuja on Monday, that the commission’s formation located in Enugu, Kano, Kaduna, Lagos, Port-Harcourt and Abuja will henceforth attend to intended customers who wish to register their businesses on its e-portal.
Elated Mahmud had averred that it is imperative for the commission to move with the current global trend and carry out its mandate in line with global best practices. He said the portal has been made user friendly such that it doesn’t require a genius in computer application to process online registration of businesses.
He added that lawyers, chattered accountants and chartered secretaries are still relevant in the operations of the commission for the sake of those who out of choice desire their services.
According to him, “Customers processing new registration in these locations shall directly complete the application forms and other relevant information and pay the registration fee as well as stamp duty on the company registration portal. Customers can upload all necessary documents through the commission’s upload interface on www.cac.gov.ng and http//services.cac.gov.ng”.
He further noted that all other states of the federation will be taken in phases as part of the move to go fully online in order to guarantee uninterrupted availability of services and ensure efficient service delivery to customers adding that the online option is cheaper, faster and convenient as transactions can be conducted from the comfort of homes and offices.
CAC boss argued that the new order was in line with the provisions of the focal objectives of the federal government through the presidential enabling business environment council (PEBEC) to improve the business environment in Nigeria and ensure that foreigners and indigenes find it easy to do business in Nigeria.
Analysts however, suspect that the problem may have come from the design of the website relating to allotted carrying capacity and security architecture therein.
