A chat with Barr. Bello Mahmud: CAC's Reform Driver

Barr. Bello Mahmud was born on the 24th of February, 1954, in Gwadabawa Local Government Area of Sokoto State. He is a law graduate of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria (1978). He was called to bar in 1979. He started work in Sokoto State Ministry of Justice as State Counsel. In June 1985, he joined the defunct Gamji Bank, which later became International Trust Bank as Secretary/Legal Adviser.

Other notable positions that he has held in his career include, his election in 1988/89 as Chairman Nigerian Bar Association (Old Sokoto Branch) comprising current Sokoto, Kebbi and Zamfara States. He became an Attorney General and Commissioner of Justice, Sokoto State in December 1996. It was a position he held till May 1999. He went back to practice in 1999 and was a Principal partner of Bello Mahmud and Co law Chambers. In 2001 he became a Director in charge of the legal/compliance department of CAC. On October 9, 2009, he was appointed by the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces as the Registrar General of the Corporate Affairs Commission. He was reappointed for another term of four years, on October 9, 2013.

RG: What informed the drive for reform at CAC?

I often set objectives for myself, much like anyone else. This helps provide context and purpose for my action. And upon my appointment, in the first year of my first term, I set for myself an objective to play my part in helping to make the Commission a World Class Registry, that would be at par with our peers in the world and which would also make life better for fellow Nigerians.

RG: What were your strategies for achieving this goal?

To improve on something, you must first know what the constraining factors are. I did a review of our operations and I identified three strategic objectives that needed to be realized to enable us achieve the goal of turning CAC into a World class registry. These included, providing online services, making the state offices at par with the head office in all aspects of our service delivery and improving on the rate of responsiveness of business owners to the responsibilities of filing annual returns on time.

Then to achieve these I defined a four point plan, which included upgrading the Commission's infrastructure and moving it from VSAT to a more reliable fibre based system, to improve network availability and transaction speed. Another aspect was the development of the "Start-to-Finish" operations model for the state offices. Then of course, we had to make provision for training to ensure that our staff had the required capacities to manage the new level of operations. The final aspect of the plan was to embark on a public awareness campaign to educate business owners and make them alive to their corporate responsibilities such as the filing of annual returns.

RG: What was the nature of challenges that you encountered in the course of driving through with the reforms?

Staff were effectively sensitized and carried along, so I did not have much resistance from staff and CAC by its very nature had a forward looking culture that was receptive to innovation. And I must use this opportunity to appreciate my management team and all the staff of CAC for their commitment, support and contributions on this journey. They were wonderful.

Lawyers were okay with the reforms until it got to the one that affected them. And that was the Direct Registration, which no longer made it mandatory for company registration to be done only through accredited intermediaries. They naturally felt challenged.

But in truth the policy did not target their class of clients. It was driven by a recognition of the peculiar circumstances of the small business owner, who doesn't have capital and who will probably even struggle to pay the registration fees. We felt these business owners should be given a window to come and do their own registration by themselves. It was a way to incentivize them to move from the informal sector, into the formal sector, which would provide them a better vehicle for their business undertakings.

The direct registration process also makes it easier for foreign investors to access the services of the Commission and helps open our country to greater possibilities.

Eventually, everyone accepted the new reality and recognized that it was designed to make life easier for everyone including the accredited intermediaries.

We also had challenges with ICT operations. We had a vendor 2004 to 2014, who did not improve on the application and so all our strategies and targets could not be met because we could not start online registration with electronic payments till 2014 when a new application was deployed.

RG: Did you face any challenges with the switch from the old to new?

No our database was intact. And we had a backup and so it wasn't difficult for us to switch over to a new system. The only hitch was that at the time the relationship with the old vendor was cut-off, the new application was not ready. So for about one month, we had to do a semi-automated system, which was very tasking.

Another challenge was that because the application had to be deployed earlier than the agreed date, all the modules could not be deployed at the same time. We started using it before the full deployment was completed.

That also caused a challenge, because post incorporation services could not come on board, at the time we started the pre-incorporation services. And this was because the timeline for the completion was not due and the vendor had to work extra time to be able to meet up.

RG: Do you think you have been able to get past the point where a new administration cannot reverse the gains made so far as is often the case in most civil service structure?

We really don't have that challenge, because as one of the frontline organizations of government, we have a progressive culture, so to say. But that has not stopped us from taking proactive measures in ensuring that the gains made so far, cannot be reversed. To this end, we have secured ministerial approval to include the timeline for different aspects of our operations in the CAC Companies Regulation 2012, which is the rule book so to say, that guides our operations.

The approval is contained in a Circular No. HMITI/CAC/017/Vol.1, as issued by the Hon. Minister of Industry Trade and Investment, pursuant to Section 16, 585 and 609 of the Companies and Allied Matters Act, LFN 2004.

Embedding such timelines in the rule book makes it difficult for any subsequent administration to go below the defined timelines, as it gives our stakeholders and indeed the public the basis upon which to hold us to account.

Consequently, reservation of names is now an operation that is expected to be completed within twelve (12) hours. Incorporations of companies shall be completed within Twenty-Four (24) hours, from the time of submission of a duly completed application form and associated documentations.

Additionally, all certification of company incorporation forms and related documents as well as the statutory declaration of compliance "for all direct applications made to the Commission" shall be handled by the Commission's lawyers without charge. And this process will be completed within the 24 hour timeline for the registration of companies.

The rule which required that customers must submit the originals of their documents within seven (7) days of registration has been dropped. In its stead, customers shall only submit such originals at the point of collecting the originals of their certificate of incorporation and the certified true copies (CTC) of their documents. And the time for the dispatch of original certificates to customers has been extended in all our Start-to-Finish offices including of course the Head office, to 7pm Monday-to-Friday.

The timelines for the treatment of all post incorporation filings across all departments/units is Twenty-Four (24) hours. So, as you can see we have made significant strides in this respect.

RG: CAC is part of the expanded National Enterprise Development Programme (NEDEP) of the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) and there have been talks that SMEs that go through SMEDAN will be granted some concessions in filing fees. Has CAC been able to determine the percentage of concession to grant such SMEs that go through SMEDAN?

Yes, CAC is in that Committee. And we have agreed in principle that to further encourage the movement of SMEs from the informal to the formal sector, all applications that are submitted through SMEDAN would be entitled to certain concession in terms of the required filing fees to be paid. But that process has to be formalized. And we are waiting for SMEDAN to formalize the process by presenting their requests officially. As you are no doubt aware, the authority to prefix registration fees lies with the Hon. Minister. The concessions we are talking about therefore also requires ministerial approval.

RG: What should Nigerians expect from CAC beyond this point?

Anybody that has registered a company about 10 or fifteen years ago, will not believe that this is CAC. Our objective is to get people to be able to register their companies within an hour or two. This is our objective and we hope to be able to realize it before the end of the year. God willing.

Even as we speak, we actually have the capacity for same day, company incorporations. But officially, we recognize the 24 hour timeline. But I can assure you that same day company incorporation is currently for real.

RG: Are there any timelines for the desired expansion of "Start-to-Finish" operations to other offices across the country?

Start-to-Finish operations is currently available in Kano Kaduna, Enugu, Port-Harcourt and Lagos. We are extending that to an additional 21 offices. We are just waiting for ministerial approval for our request to upgrade the network infrastructure at those offices, so that we can have reliable connectivity through fibre optic connection.

RG: How would you describe the level of support for reform processes in all organizations by this regime?

One of the best developments that could ever have happened to this country is the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC). In the past we didn't have any coordinated approach on the business environment. Most agencies were on their own. Reforms were initiated and adopted based on what the agency thinks is best.

But with PEBEC, things are being properly coordinated. There is greater synergy in inter-agency operations. Reform initiatives are now analysed from a holistic perspective rather than the particularistic "my-world" view of each organization. There's greater emphasis and understanding about how the process and operations of one agency affects the other.

So now everybody is pursuing the same objective across all sectors. As you know, we have different indicators that impact on ease of business. And there are timelines for meeting those targets now. And if you don't meet them, for whatever reason, someone is watching over you. EBES has no doubt helped drive the reform process. They help to articulate organizational goals in relation to the more holistic objective. They guide, they help, they watch and they measure your performance.

As the Vice-President has stated, as Public Servants, in terms of service delivery, we are accountable. So we have to hold ourselves to account for our performance.

RG: Final words

Nigeria is our country. And it's the only one we've got. We should all work hard to help make it greater and to help make it realize its potentials.