If anyone has had the privilege of transacting any business with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), he/she will attest to the fact that registering a business either as an individual or accredited agent is very herculean due to the lackadaisical demeanor of the Commission towards customer service.

One of many examples is the issue of delayed approval for registrations. According to the revised timeline for registrations on their website, business name registrations shouldn't take more than 3-5 business days. however, when you submit applications via the official CRP, it sometimes take over 2-3 weeks for an approving officer to even touch your applications and when they do, they query for the flimsiest reasons without trying to provide any further assistance or even proffer a better solution to your issue. The same is for other categories of registrations such as company and incorporated trustees.

Secondly, their customer helpdesk channels are totally inaccessible. It is either they never pick calls on any of the helplines provide on the pre-incorporation portal or they never reply to mails sent. Even when you raise a ticket through the ticket support service on their website, you will never get a response. Complaints submitted in hard copy at the headquarters takes several weeks to be attended to, sometimes you will never get a feedback from them. Yet, you can never gain access into the Commission to make complaints when you visit the headquarters because you will never be allowed in. One would have thought that an agency of government that provides such amount of service to the public should at least improve on their online support service if they do not want physical visitation for complaints in their office.

Thirdly, there has been the issue of delayed refunds for payments made and not reflecting on the CRP. For example, the CRP brings up a lot of technical errors while making payment for registrations or name reservations via Remita. 65% of the time, your payment will be accepted and you will be debited, but your payment will not reflect on the CRP. You cannot call to make complaints as they will not pick and when you send mails with all the details including your RRR, you will never get an acknowledgment..

None of the official lines published on the CRP (08182298971, 08182299016, 09087401599, 09087401598, 09087401600) are answered. Even the official line published on the official CAC website ( 0809-552-1924) does not exist. Mails sent to the official email (cservice@cac.gov.ng) are also never acknowledged. For payment and refund issues, you will be asked to send details of payment and RRR to audit@cac.gov.ng yet they still will not acknowledge.

There are several registrations pending for months and several potential business owners left frustrated because of CAC's inability to resolve complaints within the shortest possible time.

On my path, I have decided to file an official complaint with SERVICOM next week. I will also copy the Honorable Minister of Trade and Investment under whose purview is the CAC. I also intend to copy the Public Complaints Commission and the National Assembly via the Senate and House Committees on Public Complaints and also the Committee on Trade and Investment. This culture of impunity must stop.

I have had several reasons to contact FIRS for resolution of complaints and I must say that they seem to be more professional and swift in resolving complaints. I am yet to understand why CAC cannot take a cue from her sister agency.

If you had or are still having any form of issues using the CAC CRP, please kindly share, so the world can see the ineptitude and incompetence of the CAC.

Freiburger, r231 and Lalasticlala, please kindly help in pushing this forward. The right people needs to see this.