General News of Saturday, 22 December 2018
Source: citinewsroom.com
2018-12-22
A Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Robert Ahomnka-Lindsay
A Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Robert Ahomnka-Lindsay has assured that the corporate insolvency bill will be passed within the first quarter of next year.
The assurance follows the completion of the necessary parliamentary procedures surrounding the bill.
The bill when passed seeks to improve the quality of the legal regime for corporate bodies and their administration when they become insolvent.
Also, the critical aspect of the draft bill focuses on a framework for restructuring viable businesses and closing, as well as transferring assets of failed ones.
Speaking at the end of year cocktail reception of the Ghana Association of Restructuring and Insolvency Advisors (GARIA), Mr. Ahomnka-Lindsay expressed optimism that the passage of the bill will push Ghana up in the ease of doing business.
“The reality is that we have a lot of laws in parliament, so what we are trying to do as opposed to taking just insolvency, we are looking at a whole lot of other issues so we want to put them in batches. It’s not going to delay because we are doing the work, we are putting one or two of the other things that we know will come as a law as a result of the changes we plan with the insolvency act and look to do something within the first quarter of next year”, he said.
He added, “We understand the importance of the bill and we know that with its passage it will push Ghana up in the ease of doing business ranking”.
On his part, the president of the GARIA, Felix Addo was of the view that the new bill will protect the interest of all stake holders who have been affected by the activities of a company deemed insolvent.
“One of the foundation elements of an insolvency bill is the ease to which it resolves distressed or insolvency situations as, there are about ten indicators which help to attract businesses to a country and one of them is having predictable enforcement of contract laws, ease of registering a company”
Mr. Addo explained that, “An effective insolvency regime will prevent the premature dismemberment of a debtor’s assets by individual creditors seeking quick judgments”.
Meanwhile, Registrar General at the Registrar General’s Department, Jemima Oware warned that from April next year companies that are not registered on the e-register will be taken off the register.
“The companies bill we hope will be passed into an act early next year, I don’t want to give a date but I have already given out a press release even before the bill will be passed into an act that all businesses should file their returns and update their records into the new e registrar data base which we term reregistration before April of 2019, basically this system is the system which keeps track of all businesses in Ghana after April 2019 , I will put out the names of these businesses and start striking them out”