The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) has announced a new initiative to register 250,000 small businesses across Nigeria free of charge.
The initiative is part of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the CAC and the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN).
Speaking in an interview with Arise News on Friday, Magaji explained the details of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the CAC and the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN).
“What you witnessed is an understanding between the Corporate Affairs Commission and SMEDAN to register 250,000 small business enterprises in Nigeria at no cost, seamlessly,” he said.
He outlined the roles of both agencies, noting that the CAC would provide the platform for registration while SMEDAN would handle profiling and training of the businesses.
“The MoU combines the framework that each party should play to ensure the realisation of this important milestone.
”On the part of the CAC, we will provide the platform to ensure the small businesses register at no cost.”
“On the part of SMEDAN, they will profile the small businesses and provide the necessary training. Combined together, we create jobs for 250,000 youths in Nigeria through small businesses, ” he added.
Clarifying the target of the exercise, he noted that it was focused on informal businesses already operating within the economy.
“It is all about formalisation of informal businesses in Nigeria. The informal businesses that are thriving within the economy now should come and register their businesses not through any third party, but directly with the Commission at no cost,” he said.
Magaji said the exercise would also help integrate businesses into the formal economy and give them access to government support.
“It is a support given to them, providing identity and laying the foundation for them to have access to government interventions, access to loans, and to instil discipline in record keeping and other essentials,” he said.
Highlighting the CAC’s track record, Magaji recalled a recent intervention that successfully brought millions of small businesses into the formal economy.
“This is not our first intervention in support of SMEs. Last year, CAC came up with a project to regularise registration of POS operators.
”Through that initiative, we registered over four million small businesses in Nigeria in 2024 alone,” he said.
He explained that the Commission achieved this by working directly with fintech platforms.
“We provided services through their respective platforms. In the fintech industry, for instance, we worked with Opay, PalmPay, and Moniepoint.
”We provided them with APIs for registration. All their customers who were already operating illegitimately were given access and registered themselves with ease through their own platforms,” the Registrar-General said.
