Business owners have been warned to immediately renew their Business Names that have expired and re-register companies or risk an automatic cancellation by the automated compliance system. The Investment Promotion Authority (IPA) through the Office of the Registrar of Companies, issued the final warning and urged them to come forward and renew Business Names by August 31st. This means that any owner who wishes to maintain or restore the same business name after its cancellation, will be required to pay a penalty of K250 plus a renewal of K150. Similarly, the Office is warning directors of both local and overseas companies to re-register their companies during the remaining four-month grace period, which ends on 30th November. Those who fail to do so will see their companies automatically removed from the registry on December 1st when the automated compliance system for annual returns is activated. “Companies have been given generous amount of time to reregister with ease to ensure records are updated,” the Acting Registrar of Companies Ms. Harriet Kokiva said. “My Office will not be held liable for inconveniences faced after your company is removed on the 1st of December.” Ms. Kokiva also advised that the Office of the Registrar of Companies would not entertain future requests to waive any more fees once this transitional period is over. The re-registration requirement is important for existing companies because: · It allows director(s) of any company to take authority over their company enabling them to file annual returns and manage their own records online. The IPA anticipates a clean registry with up-to-date entity records after the reregistration process has been completed. Based on records, over 90% of registered companies show to be non-compliant. Therefore, to boost compliance, IPA has simplified the process by removing the requirements to file outstanding annual returns and the penalties involved. The reregistration requirement was introduced instead. This gives company directors the opportunity to update their company information free of charge and have updated and valid business information available in the public domain. For companies that are non-compliant, a fee of K500 is payable regardless of how many annual returns are outstanding. The said penalty fee relief arrangement expires come 30th November. From 1st December onwards, the annual return filing fee and late penalty fee will revert to normal.