Effective June 30th, 2022, the Registrar-General’s Department (RGD) would increase the penalty for the late filing of Annual Returns for Companies entities to GH¢500, from GH¢450.

This increment would apply to all Companies entities namely Public/Private Companies Limited by Shares, Public/Private Companies Limited by Guarantee (Churches, Schools, Unions, Associations, Clubs etc.) and Private Unlimited Companies. These Companies are to file their financial statement together with their annual returns at a cost of GHȼ50.00 per year.  

In a statement, the RGD said external companies are to submit their accounts to the Department at a cost of $600 per year or in default pay a penalty of $750 in addition to fees for all defaulted years.

Partnerships and Sole Proprietorships are also to renew their businesses at a cost of GH¢50 and GH¢25 per year respectively.

Again, Sole Proprietorship owners can electronically renew their business names by dialing the short code *222#, select RGD and follow the prompt to make payment of renewal using the Ghana.Gov payment platform.

Furthermore, companies are required to file their beneficial ownership information at a cost of GH¢60 per company before filing their Company’s Annual Returns or Amendments.

In compliance with provisions of the Companies Act, 2019 (Act 992), the RGD said  the Company Secretary is to submit a special resolution for a change of their Company Name by the addition of the appropriate suffix to the end of their Company’s Name by end of June 31st, 2022. All Companies who have not as yet adopted a new constitution in place of their Company’s Regulations are also being reminded to do so before the end of the year, 31st December, 2022.

The Registration General’s Department continued to entreat all clients to desist from using agents and intermediaries when transacting business with it.

“Kindly note that the Department does not have or operate a ‘Momo’ account nor does it have a unit tasked to ‘cancel’ defaulted Companies. Please be advised to make payment on all transactions to our in-house Fidelity Bank and interact solely with staff who bears name tags when transacting business on our premises”, it added.