Reforms Have Drastically Reduced Our Revenue — CAC Registrar General

The Registrar General of the Corporate Affairs Commission, Garba Abubakar has highlighted the new reforms he has brought to the CAC as well as operational modifications through the amended Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA 2020).

In an interview with Daily Trust, the CAC Boss revealed that reforms brought about by his administration combined with the amended Companies and Allied Matters Act has drastically reduced the time for completion of business registration whilst also leading to a dwindle in the commission’s financial fortunes.

According to him, with the passage of the Act, the CAC registration site was totally redesigned so that businesses could trade on it from any location. He also disclosed that the commission decided to implement a mailing mechanism for client registration via approved mailing businesses. In this manner, it decreased physical interaction with employees. He noted that although there was opposition, the CAC stayed firm noting that “You may now register your business from anywhere in the globe; all you need to do is establish an account – whether individual or corporate. After all procedures have been completed, we will email you your certificate.”

He equally stated that another major impact of the amended CAMA is the reduction is cost of registration. He said to register a company now, one does not need to print any documents.

“One of the major impacts is in terms of the cost of registration. To register a company now, you don’t need to print any documents. In fact, you don’t need to go to any business centre if you don’t have an office, all you need is to create an account, and key in your information. You only scan and upload your means of identification and do that seamlessly. It has reduced costs drastically because you don’t need any third-party intervention which is through lawyers and accountants. From our records, 98 per cent of these applications are processed the same day as we work 24/7. So, registration of business takes 24hrs now to complete.”

However, the CAC Boss also noted that due to reductions in cost of registrations, the commission experienced a drop in revenue last year.

He said; “Our average revenue before 2020 was N12 billion and the law allows us to spend the money on salary and running costs and we are supposed to pay the operating surplus to the government after the accounts must have been audited.

But for the first time in 2020, even with the COVID-19 challenges, we made a revenue of N20bn and we paid an operating surplus of about N3 billion out of that.

In 2021 we made about N16bn. The reason revenue dropped in 2021 was because the fee for registration was reduced by 65% for private and 165% for public companies. That drastically reduced our revenue.

We have about 1,200 staff whose salaries we have to pay and running costs and also pay electricity. We have offices in 36 states and two in Abuja and all these things cost money.

The reforms have brought down our revenue. The improvement is in terms of volume, the ease of doing business initiative was to encourage people to register. The impact of COVID is a factor but we are hoping things will improve.”