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The Registrar General, Ms. Jemima Oware, has directed companies to provide their Benefit Beneficiary (BO) information to the Registrar General’s Department (RGD) by June 30, 2021.
She said that the directive applies to companies under legacy data, therefore companies that already existed before the RGD implemented the BO registration on October 1, 2020 and that non-compliance would lead to penalties.
New applicants as of January 1, 2021 must also download the forms, fill out their BO information and attach them to the registration documents.
“It is the responsibility of companies to maintain a Membership Registry in which they must enter all the details of their Members and Beneficiaries and verify their BO information before transmitting it to the Company Registry.
“We have been talking about this, but I don’t think they took us seriously. From now on you will see how serious we are, ”said the Registrar General.
Ms. Oware gave the directive Tuesday during a RGD-hosted media workshop on the BO Information concept.
The engagement was supported by the Strengthening Action Against Corruption (STAAC) program funded by DFID UK (UK) and the Beneficial Beneficiaries Strategic Support Team (BOSS).
The Registrar General said governments around the world introduced BO Transparency to promote transparency and a fair playing field for businesses.
He said it also minimizes domestic and cross-border bribery and corruption, fraud and illegal financial transactions.
Ms Oware said that the Companies Act 2019 (Law 992) provided for the collection of BO data in all companies, adding that the BO regime required the declaration of the true owners of all companies operating in Ghana. .
He said the Business Registry would keep the information in a Central Registry and make it available to Competent Authorities such as the Center for Financial Intelligence, the Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO), the Ghana Police Service, the Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), the business community and the public that requests it to promote business transparency.
The Registrar General said that all Companies must submit BO information at the time of incorporation, during the filing of annual returns and whenever they wish to make changes to their data.
The Companies Law defines a beneficial owner as a person who, directly or indirectly, ultimately owns or exercises substantial control over a person or company.
A beneficial owner is also one who has a substantial economic interest in a company or receives substantial economic benefits from it, whether acting alone or together with other people.
He or she is the person on whose behalf a transaction is made; or that exercises significant control or influence over a legal entity or legal arrangement through a formal or informal agreement.
Therefore, a BO of an entity is therefore. a person who will enjoy the economic rights derived from the entity, regardless of whether the person is also the registered legal owner, that is, if the property of the entity is registered in his name.
RGD’s legal team, Madame Elizabeth Osae Omane, said that a person who did not provide the required information or provided false or misleading information to the Registrar committed a crime and was liable, in a summary conviction, to a fine of not less than fifty units penalty and no more. of two hundred and fifty units or to a prison sentence of not less than one year and not more than two years or both.
In addition, he said, when a company breached the law, the company and all company officials were required to pay the Registrar an administrative fine of twenty-five units of fine for each day during which the breaches continued.
