Few weeks ago, the Corporate Affairs Commission (the Commission) sent out a notice to the general public on their plans for implementing the Companies and Allied Matters Act, 2020; and their proposed upgrade of the Companies Registration Portal (CRP), to accommodate the changes introduced by the new Law.

In furtherance to that notice, the Commission has successfully upgraded the portal for registration of companies and other entities; separating the pre-incorporation portal and introducing a post-incorporation portal.

For all pre-incorporations matters, you visit: pre.cac.gov.ng

And for post-incorporation matters, you visit: post.cac.gov.ng

The other key innovations can be found below:

Notable innovations:

1.      Electronic Document Management System (EDMS)

The Corporate Affairs Commission has introduced an electronic document management system for receiving, organizing, tracking and storing different kinds of documents. The EDMS Software handles electronic documents and scanned documents.

With the EDMS, users can now upload their documents on the portal during registration and filing of post-incorporation. There is no longer a separate portal for document upload as it has been integrated in the pre-incorporation and post-incorporation portal. This makes the portal more user friendly and time saving.

Interestingly, customers will no loner be required to download documents and sign them before uploading the documents. Customers can now upload their signatures, passport photographs (where necessary) during registration on the portal.

2.      E-Certificate

Another notable innovation on the CRP is the introduction of E-certificate. Customers will no longer be issued hard copy certificates as E-Certificate will be automatically generated to the user’s dashboard upon the approval of any entity and the User can then download the Certificate.

3.      E-Status Report

Before now, the commission was issuing a certified true copy of the application form for registration of different entities.  A document format called E-status report has now been introduced to replace the CAC forms (CAC 1.1; BN 1 and IT Form 1) issued upon new registration/incorporation of all entities.

The portal is still a work in progress as pending applications for registration are yet to be updated.

We hope that these innovations will improve the Ease of doing Business Agenda of the Federal Government.