Garba Abubakar, Corporate Affairs Commission’s registrar-general, says funding is one of the major challenges of the agency.
Mr Abubakar told journalists in Abuja that a recent government policy was unfavourable and impacted negatively on the CAC.
“The major challenge is funding. Government policies have actually impacted us. Before now, we were allowed to generate, spend and release the surplus to the government,” stated Mr Abubakar. “But that policy has changed. We are limited to spending only 60 per cent of our revenue. Forty per cent is deducted automatically and paid in the account operating surplus to the government.”
The CAC chief added, “So, it has been difficult, and this year has been very difficult. You have to pay staff. You have to maintain your systems. You have to pay your service providers. You have to pay for power.”
According to Mr Abubakar, the law requires CAC to have offices in all 36 states of the federation and the FCT, which it has complied with.
“You have to maintain these offices, power these offices. You have to clean these offices. You have security. So, it has been quite challenging, but we are hoping that government will look into this. We have made a presentation,” the CAC boss lamented. “We are fully self-funding, we don’t get subvention from the government, so it has been quite challenging.”
The registrar-general stated that CAC deployed an electronic financial statement platform so companies no longer have to scan and upload their financial statements.
He said the project was funded by the European Union Citizen for Change Programme.
According to him, the project eased the burden for clients and can be used to query, to know the number of companies registered and their information.
“The portal is developed in line with the principles of extensible reporting language. We have just made some changes that allow you to upload the signatures of the directors as you are submitting the statement,” Mr Abubakar explained. “So this has been a milestone, we will continue with our sensitisation and enlightenment, and most of the initiatives have actually been achieved.”
(NAN)
