IPA removes companies

By CLARISSA MOI
A TOTAL of 4,724 companies have been removed from the Investment Promotion Authority’s (IPA) registry for failing to comply with regulations, according to acting registrar of companies Harriet Kokiva.
She said the action followed the notice of intention issued on Nov 7, 2019, to remove 5,000 companies that had failed to file annual returns since 2000 in accordance with section 368(1) of the Companies Act 1997 (as amended).
Kokiva said about 5.5 per cent (276 out of the 5,000 companies) had complied and their names had been removed from the default list or the notice of removal list.
She said those companies were given a month.
The deadline fell on Dec 10. However, the deadline was extended to Jan 16 as there were a lot of appeals received from those companies.
“We saw that their reasons were genuine so we gave them that privilege,” she said. “On the 17th of January, we removed those companies.”
Kokiva said the notice of removal and the National Gazette would be published in The National tomorrow (Jan 28).
“It was encouraging to see that a good number of companies responded to the publication of the notice of intention to deregister,” she said. “These were companies who had not shown any activity of compliance. So we are generally pleased with the results.
“We also gave consideration to companies who had approached us in time and gave their assurance to comply. Their names have also been removed from the list.
“However, they will be removed in the second batch if they fail to meet their commitment to comply. We have removed a total of 4,724 companies from that list.
“In the notice of intention, there were 202 foreign companies that were non-compliant.”