Registrar-General of the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), Bello Mahmud, says the CAC’s goal was to be able to register companies within two hours, anywhere in Nigeria. In a lecture titled ‘Nigeria’s New Business Environment and CAC’s Intervention,’ at the 3rd Annual Seminar for Trade and Investment Correspondents and Editors recently, Mahmud said it had been able to reduce the period of registration of companies from five days to 24 hours.

“Our collaboration with the EFCC, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and other financial agencies has exposed over 370 ‘wonder banks’ out of 400 ones that were investigated. We are developing our electronic registration in phases and we are planning to be able to get companies registered within two hours before first quarter of 2014,” he said.

Mr. Mahmud said that the CAC was investing hugely in electronic registration of companies and in making its operations fully ICT- compliant. He said the CAC had inaugurated a committee to review “contemporary law and practices,” both nationally and internationally. “This change is necessary because in the contemporary world, globalisation is increasingly blurring business boundaries. The committee’s findings will soon be made public. We want to bring our operations at the same standard with some of the best company registries,” he said.

He noted that the CAC was the agency charged with the responsibility of registration and regulation of the formation, management and winding up of companies, business names and incorporated trustees. “Until 2004, registration services were manually carried out in the CAC. Now, we are able to reduce the incidence of mistakes and duplication of names and numbers in registering companies,” Mahmud added.