In a bid to streamline its corporate records and weed out dormant entities, the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) has announced plans to delist approximately 100,000 companies suspected to be inactive by the upcoming January 2024 deadline.
Justine Nidia, the Director of Compliance at CAC, unveiled the commission’s resolve to initiate this extensive cleanup of registered companies.
Highlighting the response received since the deadline announcement, Nidia revealed that out of the initial 100,000 companies identified for potential delisting, only 5,000 responded promptly and filed their annual returns.
“We published an initial list of about 100,000 companies to be delisted.
“We gave an initial period of 90 days, which has elapsed, to those who think they will still be in business to file annual returns for them not to be delisted,” explained Nidia.
However, with only a fraction of the identified companies complying within the stipulated time frame, nearly 95,000 companies remain on the brink of being delisted.
Nidia further elaborated on the subsequent steps taken by CAC to rectify this situation.
She said the commission issued another publication urging companies that had already submitted their returns but found their names on the delisting list to provide evidence of compliance.
According to her, an additional one-month grace period has been granted to prevent any inadvertent delisting of active companies.
She said the extension allows businesses to furnish proof of filing their returns and rectify any discrepancies.
She added that the CAC maintains an accurate and updated registry.
”Consequently, after this one month, the commission plans to publish the final list of companies slated for delisting in an official gazette,” she added.
