Oyo To Partner CAC To Ease Business Registration

Pix: Yinka Fatoki, Executive Secretary, Oyo State Bureau of Investment Promotion and Public Partnership and Suleimon Muhammed of Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) in Ibadan today

In its stride to make the State a haven of business activities, Oyo State government today held a meeting with the zonal headship of Corporate Affairs Commission.

The meeting which held at the State Secretariat, Agodi at the behest of the State Governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi was led by the Executive Secretary, Bureau of Investment Promotion and Public Partnerships, Mr Yinka Fatoki while the Corporate Affairs Commission was represented by its zonal head, Mr Sulaimon Muhammed.

Fatoki who called on the CAC to partner the State in its renewed effort at industrializing the State and make it a hub of commerce asked for the commission to establish a ‘one-stop-office’ for speedy process of business registration.

He said the State government was ready to provide needed logistics in the area of office space and other resources to expedite the process as according to him, the newly flagged-off industrial park and Free Trade Zone in the State would attract large, medium and small scale businesses.

Fatoki added that in line with recent arrangement to give Oyo State a pride of place as a strategic brand in the comity of States in Nigeria, the State governor had been working at broadening the scope of the State economy to attract foreign and local investors, hence the need to expunge bottlenecks in the process of setting up business in the State.

“The State administration had recently institutionalized an industrial park and free trade zone that will become a beehive of industrial activities, we envisage an inflush of business interests from the large, medium and small scale to come in and do business, we want them to have an easy process of achieving this.

“The rigours of registering business can easily discourage would-be investors, that is why the State governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi asked that this meeting be held so that we can facilitate a process of forging partnership that will result in creation of a one-stop office for the purpose of making the registration process simple.

“We are ready to provide logistics to support the creation of this office and we expect the commission to reciprocate this gesture,” Fatoki said.

The Southwest Zonal Director of Corporate Affairs Commission, Sulaimon Muhammed in his response assured the State government of making the request of establishment of the one-stop office possible.

He said the creation of the office would truly fast track registration process and aid his commission in generating more revenue.

Muhammed said business registration by CAC had been transformed into a speedy process with the incursion of the Internet, saying business name availability which used to create the utmost hindrance could be done online and achieve result under 24hours while registration could also be done online within a week.

“Your request to set up a one-stop office will not only assist business owners register without sweat and in a short period, it will as well help us at the CAC to increase our internally-generated revenue.

“It gladdens my heart to inform you that today, CAC has removed the barriers that cause delay in registration of business, with the use of Internet, you can complete your availability process in a day and your registration within a week.

“We believed this will reduce middlemen interference and activities of touts that make the cost of registration go outside the real cost, all the State government has to do is to write a memo to the headquarters and I will do the rest of the follow-up towards the creation of the one-stop office within the Secretariat.”