Ghana: New Registrar of Companies Launched to Boost Way of Doing Business

25 July 2022
GhanaToday (Accra)
By Rex Mainoo Yeboah

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has launched the new Office of the Registrar of Companies (ORCs) with the mandate to boost investor confidence, fight corruption and increase the ease of doing business.

The Act establishing the office (Company's Act, 992 of 2019) has entrusted ORCs to take up the duties of the company and business registration and advisory services.

Act 992 of 2012 established ORCs as a new statutory entity--the Registrar of Companies--is different from the Registrar General's Department.

Speaking at the launch last Friday, President Akufo-Addo said the Registrar General's Department role had not been abolished.

He said a new Registrar General would be appointed in accordance with the Act to carry on with the operations of the Registrar General's Department to oversee the registration of intellectual property rights, marriages under special licence and the administration of estates.

President Akufo-Addo said the new Registrar of Companies is a body corporate with perpetual succession, acquires and holds property and enters into contract or any other transaction.

The President indicated that even though the Registrar of Companies was expected to mobilise substantial internally generated funds, the office was required by Act 992 to be financially autonomous of the government.

President Akufo-Addo said in addition to the provision of information to be entered into the company's register, verifying information provided by companies to the registrar and directing access to the information contained in the registrar, "the Office of the Registrar of Companies will become a viable partner of the government in the effort to root out corruption."

That, the President explained, was a result of the phenomenon of the creation of fake companies and opaque financial systems that provided an opportunity for the laundering and concealment of illicit wealth.

President Akufo-Addo commended the Registrar of Companies for the efforts to ensure that all records of companies and businesses registered were digitised.

"This is in line with the goal to go completely digital and make the retrieval of records of companies and businesses timely and efficient," he added.

Read the original article on GhanaToday.

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