The immediate past Registrar General of the Corporate Affairs Commission, CAC, Alhaji Garba Abubakar, has said that his administration’s strict adherence to order led the commission to issue warning to defaulting companies to comply or face delisting.
Abubakar made the assertion in a telephone interview with our correspondent.
The former CAC boss, who is a senior advocate, was replaced on October 23 by another senior advocate, Hussaini Ishaq Magaji, who has immediately assumed duties.
Criticism had trailed the warning issued by the CAC on the erring companies but Abubakar said the action was necessitated by the need to sanitise operations and ensure efficiency.
“When you register a business for any entity with the CAC, the law is clear that there are obligations attached, one of which is that you must file annual returns to the commission, in addition to supplying current information on your company,” Abubakar said.
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“A lot of companies that registered for a long time didn’t discharge some of these responsibilities and although we sent constant reminders to them, they still didn’t respond. That was why we issued the warning,” he said.
Abubakar however said that the warning achieved positive results after more companies responded to update their records.
On the ease of doing business which the CAC promoted, Abubakar said the commission during his tenure as registrar general provided enabling environment for businesses to thrive.
“Applicants for company register didn’t need the intervention of anybody except there was a problem in navigating the portal. They could also access our services from anywhere in the world,” he said.
Amidst the criticism of dictatorship levelled against Abubakar in the manner he conduct affairs at the CAC from 2020 till last week, the former CAC boss said he worked according to the rules but tried to enforce the discipline needed to ensure sustainable success.
“As CEO, I considered the fact that I inherited a system that encouraged high level of indiscipline. So, the onus was on me to instill discipline and enforce it among the work force. The result showed in the industrial harmony that pervaded my tenure,” he said.
