05/08/2020
OVER 4000 COMPANIES STRUCK OFF FIRST LIST
By Matthew Vari, 5 August 2020
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Sadly, only around 600 out of the 5000 companies put on notice by the Investment Promotion Authority have complied with regulations of the Companies Act 1997.
Those were the sentiments IPA managing director Clarence Hoot had for the first lot of companies warned by the compliance regulator to meet compliance.
Mr Hoot said over 4000 companies have been struck off the registry by the registrar of companies as a result of the cleansing exercise carried out this year.
The first 5000 on the list were given until the end of December 2019, as IPA aims to clean up its database, making way for its automated compliance program system.
These companies have not complied on annual return at all up to the year 2000 according to the registry of companies.
“We did that first 5000, we had about 600 comply, so 4000 or so companies have been removed.
“This is very bad because it also affects those companies with bank accounts, meaning their bank accounts have been closed and they now have to come back to the IPA and go through the process of reinstatement which is tedious and very costly.
“So we hope this brings the alert button to the businesses so they recognise that compliance is an important aspect of doing business,” Mr Hoot said.
He also updated that the authority planned to have the second tranche, the next 5000 beyond 2000 non-compliance, but COVID-19 has interrupted the progress to the next batch.
“At present we are not doing anything about it yet, but also at these hard times when businesses are facing a hard time in terms of economic development and running their operations.
“The registrar has allowed for some flexibility for companies in terms of reporting their financials, lodging their annual returns and the waiving of penalties.”
The MD added that those removed from the registry are basically closed, by law, and those dealing with such entities have to be careful and ensure checks on the online IPA registry will save them any issues they face doing business with such entities.
Before the deregistration exercise commenced, over 63,000 companies were registered with the authority.
Source: Post Courier, 29/7/2020 (Page 31)
