The Registrar General has hinted that her outfit will begin the digital registration of businesses from next year.
According to her, this user-friendly online platform would facilitate the registration of businesses and prevent the long delays associated with business registration in the country.
Speaking at a roundtable discussion organised by Veritas International Nominees and Trustees Limited on the theme, ‘Doing Business in Ghana: A Legal Perspective’, Jemima Oware said, “Through the World Bank’s funding, we are coming up with completely new software, hopefully within a year. This should be deployed and it is going to be online. It’s going to be such that when you go in with your hard copy documents, we’ll charge you more.”
Unhappy with the ignorance of most Ghanaians and business owners when it comes to the business registration process, she urged Ghanaians to make use of the upcoming online platform to avoid being duped by third-party agents, locally called ‘goro boys’.
“I don’t know why Ghanaians don’t want to do things themselves. And the people they always go for end up ripping them off. Registration of a business name is just GH¢60 but they will pay somebody GH¢300 to register the name of their business. Because they just don’t want to even try and understand the system,” she lamented.
She then urged, “If we make it user friendly, please use it and let’s hope that everything will work right and within 30 minutes, you’ll get your certificate.”
Jemima Oware further assured that her outfit will soon begin the integration of their customers’ TIN and Ghana cards to help track business owners who commit fraud or go against the laws.
“With the new system, the unique identifier is going to be the Ghana card. Currently, the e-registrar has not been upgraded to accept the Ghana card yet because of contractual obligations we have with our software developer. That is why we’re still using the TIN. But that is going to be upgraded even before the new system is put in place. People used to have as many as three or four TINs but the unique identifier will help you to track everyone in the system.”