The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) said it has integrated its system with the database of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC).
The registrar-general of the Commission, Garba Abubakar, disclosed this in an interview with newsmen on Monday and said this will help to fast-track the process of company registrations. According to him, the integration allows the commission to instantly validate the information about the individual registering a company.
He added that with the integration, the Commission no longer requires people to upload their signature while registering a company as that will be accessed through the NIMC database. He also declared only Nigerians with National Identification Numbers (NIN) can now register a company in the country.
“Before now, sometimes we had cases where means of identification were cloned. Some names other than the main owners are super-imposed and submitted to us for registration. We had cause to query some of them, request the original for sighting and they will disappear.” Abubakar said while noting that the integration with the NIMC database will ensure the integrity of the information received via the CAC portal.
“So, with integration, that is no longer possible. For every Nigerian, you will only be able to register if you have a National Identification Number (NIN),” he added.
Speaking on the Commission’s commitment to ensuring speedy service delivery to clients, said the CAC has been driving this through improvements being made to its portal.
“There is no government agency that has a truly self-serving portal as the CAC and our services are rendered 24/7. We don’t have weekends, we don’t have public holidays, we don’t have Christmas, we don’t have Sallah. Our staff works any time of the day, any day of the week to continue to render services to Nigerians,” Abubakar said.
On the cost of accessing the Commission’s services, he said it had been a deliberate policy at the commission for clients to access basic information about all the entities registered for free to Nigerians.
“So, if you want to know whether a company is registered. You will have information about the name, the address in the document, the date of registration and the registration number. And we have added the Beneficial Ownership Information as a deliberate policy consistent with our regulations. This is what will actually help and support our anti-corruption initiative.
“If the members of the public and the civil society and investigation agencies have access to this information, it gives them the opportunity, the latitude to do their work more efficiently. “They don’t have to call us, they don’t have to send any letter to us, they can access this information on their own and use this information in the course of their investigation,” he said.
According to Abubakar, the commission would on May 25, inaugurate the register for the Beneficial Ownership Information, which is a key initiative of the government. He said the stand-alone register would allow people to query the database either by the name of the individual or by his address or the name of the company. Abubakar said it would also provide all the necessary information required on the entity.