40m SMEs operating in Nigeria without CAC registration

No fewer than 40 million Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)
operating in the country are yet to register their businesses with
the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), Acting Registrar-General of
the commission, Azuka Azinge, has said.

However, he said over 69,000 businesses had been registered by
the commission in the last two months on the premise of Federal
Government’s Business Incentive Strategy (BIS) programme.

Speaking at an interactive session with the media at the weekend
in Abuja, she said the BIS, an initiative set up to bridge the wide
gap of unregistered businesses, was primarily to encourage small
business operators register their business for a reduced cost of
N5,000 rather than the approved N10,000 for three months ending at
the end of December.

“The initiative was started to encourage formalization of over
40 million small and medium enterprises that are unregistered in
Nigeria. You know what consequences that has bearing in mind the
role that they play in any economy.

“So far, within these two months we have registered over 69,000
entities from October 1 till date. The whole idea was to bring in
as many as possible and by the end of December we are hoping to
still have a large number from what I am seeing in the data and the
names that are being approved,” she said. Excited about the
positive results of the BIS and clamour for an extension from state
governments and organisations, she noted that the commission was in
talks with the ministry to extend the programme beyond
December.

“There is a tremendous increase in the number of businesses
being registered and we can say the initiative is a success.
Already people are asking for an extension and we have just written
to the minister to extend it for another three months. “Both state
governments and several organisations are asking for more time to
enable them register,” she added. The CAC boss also clarified that
no company was delisted this year, however explained that so far
about 40,000 companies; 38,000 in 2016 and about 2,000 in 2014 were
delisted by the commission.

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