The Registrar General’s Department (RGD)is set to delete the names of more than 100,000 dormant companies from its database in its maiden clean-up exercise to ensure a credible and updated register of companies.
The exercise begins this month with 3,100 companies, the first batch of companies registered since 2011, but had failed to company with a directive to file their annual returns or update their records.
A statement issued in Accra yesterday by the Registrar-General, Mrs Jemima Oware said the companies included public/private companies limited by shares; public/private companies limited by guarantee such as associations, fun clubs and churches; private unlimited companies, and external companies.
It said the exercise which would continue until the end of December this year, had become necessary after the end of the three months validation process conducted by the Department from July to September this year, to review the sampled group of companies not in good standing.
It said more than 257,241 companies existing in the database had not filed their returns or amendments with the Department since 2011 and 670, 282 Companies in the Legacy System (Old database) had not carried out the update of their data dubbed “Re-registration” as at March, 2020.
“The Department therefore urges all defaulting Companies (whether in operation or not in Operation) to take measures to regularise their business and update their records with the department to avoid being delisted”, it said.
The statement said any company official with knowledge of the company’s non-existence or having no more interest in the company‘s name or willfully wanting to wind-up or dissolve the company or being no more interested in the company’s business name should inform the Registrar-General indicating such intention.
It said the exercise was backed by section 289 of the Companies Act 2019 (Act 992) which states that a company could 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.
“The Act mandates the Registrar of Companies to wind up companies whose office is known not to be in operation after notices and a moratorium have been given to such companies to file their Annual Returns and yet have not complied.”, it said.
The statement said a company’s status after the strike off at this period would be classified as being inactive and would not be able to be accessed for any business transaction for the next 12 years except by a Court Order to the Department to restore it to a status of good standing in the Companies Register.
It said company officials who found the name of their Companies in the list to be published in the newspaper and the website of the department,could still file their annual returns with the Department to get their names off the list and avoid being delisted by the end of the month.
It said the next batch of businesses to be sent notices would be the companies, partnerships and business names in the Legacy Data from 1963 to 2011 who had still not updated their records with the department.
