Registrar-General Dept. to Delete Dormant Companies from Register

The Registrar-General’s Department has issued out a press statement that it is going to delete the names of various dormant public and private companies from the national register.

The exercise according to the Registrar-General’s Department is scheduled to take effect in July 2021.

"The Registrar-General’s Department wishes to inform all Directors, Shareholders, Company Secretaries of Public/Private Companies Limited by Shares, Private Unlimited Companies, Companies Limited by Guarantee and External Companies that this is the FINAL NOTICE to all Companies on its intended cleanup exercise of delisting dormant ompanies from the Companies database," the statement signed and issued by the Register- General, Mrs. Jemima Oware on Thursday, March 25, 2021

The final notice in the statement noted that, is a follow up to two earlier notices issued on 12th May and on 1st December 2020 in the National Dailies and the Registrar-General’s Department website respectively to remind companies about the cleanup of the Companies Register.

The statement stressed that the companies, therefore, have between now and June 30 2021 to comply with this directive.

It indicated that the exercise has become necessary as a result of the Department’s database being over-bloated with names of 740,628 dormant Companies registered between 1963 to 2011, (Legacy database), with only 70,346 being updated into our new database.

According to the statement, the rest of the Companies have neither ever filed their Annual Returns nor Re-registered with the Department.

More so, the statement asserted that only 266,765 companies have filed their Annual Returns out of the total 524,006 companies registered in the new Company database (registrar) from 2012 to 2020.

According to the statement, this renders the rest of the companies not in good standing with the Department.

Provisions under Section 289 of the Companies Act 2019, (Act 992) connotes that 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.

 Furthermore, the statement noted that the Companies Act mandates the Registrar of Companies to notify the General Public with three notices after which a grace period of 3months would be given to make all the mandatory filings after the final notice.

The Department in the statement urged all clients to “visit our website www.rgd.gov.gh, click on News and Scroll down to view the list of Companies the Registrar intends to strike off the Register.”

 It added that the companies must take the necessary steps to act on this final notice, as the Department would deem companies that do not update their records as not carrying on business or not in operation and unless the cause is shown to the contrary be stricken off the Register. 

Freeman Koryekpor Awlesu