Registrar General issues final notice on deletion of dormant companies
The Registrar General’s Department has reiterated its decision to delete all dormant companies from its database to clean up the register.
This follows two earlier notices issued on 12 May and on 18 December 2020 informing companies about the intended cleanup of the department’s register.
In a final notice to companies issued and signed by Jemima Oware, the Registrar General, the department said companies had up to 30 June 2021, to comply with the directive.
The statement said the department’s database was bloated with names of 740,628 dormant companies registered between 1963 and 2011 (Legacy database), with only 70,346 of them updated so far.
It noted that the remaining companies had neither filed their annual returns nor re-registered with the department.
‘’More so, only 266,765 companies have filed their annual returns out of the total 524,006 registered companies in the new company database (e-Registrar) since 2012 which renders the rest of the companies not in good standing with the department.”
Provisions under section 289 of the Companies Act 2019, (Act 992) say a company can be stricken off the Register due to the failure of the company to file its annual returns on time or due to a change in the Company’s Registered Office and Principal Place of Business without notifying the Registrar of Companies timeously.
The Companies Act further mandates the Registrar of Companies to notify the General Public with three notices after, which a grace period of three months would be given to make all the mandatory filings after the final notice.
“After the expiration of the three months from the date of the notice, the names of the Companies/Partnerships that have still failed to comply with the moratoriums granted would be stricken off the register and the Company would be deemed dissolved,” the statement added.
It said companies must, therefore, take the necessary steps to act on the final notice, as the department would deem those who failed to update their records as not “carrying on business or not in operation and unless the cause was shown to the contrary.”
