The Ghana Community Network Services Limited (GCNet) has said it is confident it will by August this year complete the full automation process of business registration and the online registration for the Registrar General’s Department (RGD).
According to GCNet, the automation of the RGD is expected to keep middle men popularly known as “goro boys” out of business registration and also end the issuance of fake certificates to unsuspecting people.
The Registrar General’s Department (RGD) embarked on business automation project which now allows for the registration of businesses online as part of the Government’s eGhana project in collaboration with the World Bank.
In view of this, data available suggests that, there have been significant progress made since the inception of the project in 2012 which includes integration and real time exchange of registration data with the Ghana Revenue Authority tax system.
Also, there is now the provision of public online service via the eRegistration Portal including’ Name Search, Name Reservation, Business Registration, Regulatory Filing, Change in Particulars, Conversions and ePayments.
Speaking on the issue, the General Manager of GCNet Alwin Hoegerle said e-business registeration is also part of measures taken to reduce the human interface and the turnaround time in business registration with the responsible agency, the RGD.
“We will from August this year introduce the eCertification which will also contribute to reducing the human interface and interference with work at the RGD while cutting down on the number days it takes to register and receive business registration.
With the introduction of the online registration in 2012, on the average if you look at the figures we have seen since the system was installed, Ghana now does between 4,000 to 6,000 business registration per month which translates into about 75,000 business registration per a year.” He said.
According to Mr. Hoegerle, the RGD system is also directly linked to the tax system of the GRA known as TRIPS which has created the room for businesses and owners to be identified and registered by the Ghana Revenue Authority with all of them given Tax Identification Numbers (TIN).”
In the Doing Business 2017 Report authored by the World Bank, Ghana ranked 110th in the world and 17th in Africa in terms of ease of starting a business which many have said does not reflect the country’s image as a business-friendly country.
Source: B&FT Online