Informal businesses in the FCT will soon be registered as the Abuja Enterprise Agency, AEA, seeks partnership with the Corporate Affairs Commission, CAC.
The AEA plans to register 2,000 micro and small businesses free of charge in the FCT, its Managing Director, Shehu Abdulkadir, said in Abuja on Thursday.
He told the Registrar-General of the CAC, Alhaji Garba Abubakar, whom he visited that the free registration would complement a similar exercise just concluded by the CAC.
The CAC recently closed free registration of 250,000 business names which began on Oct. 19, 2020, as part of the Federal Government’s post-COVID-19 intervention to support micro and small businesses.
During the period, the Federal Government approved the free registration of 6,606 business names in each of 33 states while Abia, Lagos, and Kano states had 7,906, 9,084, and 8,406 slots, respectively.
Abdulkadir said the free registration of informal businesses would cover the six area councils of the FCT.
He also requested the CAC to grant a 50 percent waiver to enable the AEA to formalise 2,000 informal businesses in the FCT.
He said since poverty alleviation was one of its mandates, the AEA, which came into being in 2006 had promoted youth entrepreneurship schemes often involving NYSC members some of whom had become self-employed.
He added that the agency was also involved in the training of 362 retiring employees of the FCT Administration on ways to earn livelihoods in retirement.
Responding, Abubakar noted the proposals made by the AEA and pledged to accord priority attention to them by obtaining necessary government approval to kick start the project.
He restated his commitment to continue to pursue meaningful reform initiatives aimed at ensuring that the CAC operated in line with global best practices.