BY NKIRUKA NNOROM

The Corporate Affairs Commission, CAC, said it is considering an upward review of the fees required for registration of Limited Liability companies in the country.

The Commission will also in the course of time enforce registration of business names for owners of small businesses scattered across the country.

The newly appointed Chairman of the Commission, Otunba Funso Lawal, gave the hint when he paid a courtesy visit to the management of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE, and to also ring the closing bell, as part of his familiarisation tour of some key institutions and ministries in the country.

He said that the increment became necessary due to the need to rake in more revenue to pursue the Commission’s drive of providing its customers with better and efficient services.

He said, “We are improving our services; we are trying to provide more services and we want to ensure that we are more efficient. All these things come at a cost. So, even though with the Small and Medium Enterprises, SMEs, we will continue to encourage them, with some other companies like Limited Liability companies, they might see a slight increase, but it should not be significant.”

“We are part of the federal government’s transformation agenda to ensure that we encourage small and medium scale enterprises, and we want to ensure that we encourage such companies to do business in Nigeria and at such, we will ensure that we do the necessary things to make sure that the cost of doing business is reduced,” he added.

On the Commission’s planned enforcement of registration for informal businesses, Lawal said, “Our Public Affairs Department will to go out and appeal to them on the registration of their businesses. But the fact remains that they don’t have to register as limited liability companies, they can register just their business names. All around here, Idumonta, Oyingbo and Lagos Island, there are a lot of companies, but people are not ready to register, they just put their name and we are going out to talk to them and try to ensure that they are registered.”