[ 2021-02-04 ]

Beneficial ownership information disclosure mandatory — Registrar-General
BY: Severious Kale-Dery

The Registrar-General’s Department (RGD) has
given all existing businesses up to June 30, this
year to provide information on the actual owners
of the establishments, also known as beneficial
owners (BO).

The Registrar-General, Mrs Jemima Oware, who
issued the directive, cautioned that after the
deadline, businesses that did not comply would be
sanctioned.

She, however, said the department was more
interested in compliance than punishing
offenders.

Event

Mrs Oware was speaking at a media sensitisation
workshop on the beneficial ownership regime and
its relevance in Accra last Tuesday.

It was also to educate the participants on the
requirement of the law and the various BO
E-learning modules and other resource materials.

The workshop was organised in collaboration with
Strengthening Action Against Corruption (STAAC)
and the Beneficial Ownership Strategic Support
(BOSS) Team, both civil society organisations
whose programmes are funded by the United Kingdom
Department for International Development (DFID).

The BO regime, which took off in the extractive
sector in October last year, has, since January 2,
this year, been rolled out to cover all sectors of
the economy.

Therefore, anyone seeking to register a business
must now provide a BO information.
PEGAS RANA MOTTORS

Categories

Mrs Oware listed the category of businesses that
must provide information on their activities to
include private and public companies limited and
unlimited by shares, private and public companies
limited by guarantee, as well as external
companies.

"So, since January 1, 2021, we have requested
every company that comes to register to download
the form, fill it and attach it to the
registration documents," she said.

Beneficial owner

A beneficial owner is a person to whom specific
property rights in equity belong, even though
legal title of the property may belong to another
person.

Beneficial owners normally have directors or
shareholders representing them, even though they
are the real persons who will benefit ultimately
from those companies.

Under the current regime, Mrs Oware said: “This
person will now have to be disclosed, upon
registration or when filing the annual
returns.”

According to her, businesses were requested to
have a register of BOs, but many companies did not
have such registers.

"When I say members, I mean shareholders of a
company; every company is supposed to have such a
register with the names of who the real owners
are.

“So between now and June 30, all company
secretaries should start compiling the beneficial
owners of their respective companies,” she
said.

Mrs Oware added that when companies come to file
changes or update their records through the filing
of their annual returns, "it is mandatory for them
to update us with the beneficial ownership
information”.

Principles of BO

A lead facilitator with the BOSS Team, Mr Samuel
Bekoe, said the BO regime sought to improve the
way of doing business in the country.

He said it was important for people to know who
they were doing business with “because people
hide behind these companies to carry out money
laundering, terrorism financing and other
financial crimes”.

According to Mr Bekoe, politically exposed persons
(PEP) were particularly required to declare their
stake in companies to avoid using their influence
to acquire contracts for their own benefit.

He mentioned such persons to include ministers of
state, political party executives, government
appointees, certain levels of civil service
position holders, security service chiefs and
their close relations.

Mr Bekoe said the BO regime would help Ghana
improve on its revenue collection and also fight
corruption by closing some tax gaps.

Source - Graphic

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