50,000 Companies to be taken off from CAC Register

The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) last week Wednesday said that 50,000 companies would soon be delisted for failing to file their annual returns.

  The Registrar General of the CAC, Mr. Bello Mahmud, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.

   Mahmud said "The defaulters would be de-listed after due notification through different channels of communication as prescribed by law.He disclosed that 9,347 companies had so far been delisted by the commission since inception for failing to file their annual returns,623,659 out of a total of over 1.2 million registered companies in the country had not filed their annual returns.He said that the 623,659 companies, which represent 49 per cent of the total number, were those that have not filed a single return since their registration.He said that others were those in partial default of between two and four years, but he did not specify the number in this category".

The law requires every registered company to file its first annual return 18 months after registration, and not later than 42 days after holding its annual general meeting for the year.

CAC currently charges between N1000 and N5000 as filing fees for annual returns, depending on the size of the company, while default attracts a penalty fee of N100 per day.