The Registrar General’s Department recorded about GH¢S75.2 million in revenue for the 2017 calender year.

The department registered about 86, 914 new companies in 2017 as against 60,000 in 2016.

Of the total business registrations, online transactions at the Registrar General’s Department (RDG) saw a tremendous growth, with more than 12,400 transactions recorded last year.

Data shows a significant increase in online registrations. Online transactions increased from a mere 86 in 2015 and 2,811 in 2016 to the over 12,000 in 2017.

At 8,116, Sole Proprietorship topped the list of businesses registered, up from the 1,722 registrations done online in 2016.

This was followed by Companies with shares, which saw almost 400% increase to 3,304 in 2017, from 845 recorded in 2016.

External Company saw the lowest registration online in 2017 recording some 13 companies against 4 in 2016 and nil in 2015.

Also Subsidiary Business Name in 2017 for online recorded 113 and 28 for 2016 but had no registrations in 2015.

The growth follows the RGD’s successful implementation of the online registration of companies, as well as the soon to be implemented one-stop-shop registration of businesses.

Of the almost 87,000 businesses that got registered in 2017 which includes online registrations, Sole Proprietorship registration was 58,504, followed by Company Limited by Shares recording 21,700, Company Limited by Guarentee recorded 5, 754, Subsidiary Business Name 594, Partnership 213 and finally External Company recording 149 registrations.

The department under the leadership of Mrs Jemima Oware, has seen some tremendous changes aimed at improving business registration with the introduction of functions which are supported by a number of online services, including the e-Shop which allowed company searches, reservation of company names and the booking of marriage ceremonies, amongst others.

Also, as at the end of December 2017, 39,602 Re-registrations had been done since January 2015.

The Registrar General, Mrs Jemima Oware told the B&FT that most of the reforms being undertaken by the department are to help investors or registrants conduct their end-to-end business registration on the RGD portal and offices without and hustle, while the online is to result in the issuance of an e-certificate.

“Linked to the RGD portal is a fully functional e-payment platform which allows payments to be made in the course of online transactions.

This is in line with government’s commitment to deepening leveraging technology to improve the ease of doing business in Ghana and to enhance the business competitiveness of the country,” she said.

Mrs. Oware said in line with the commitment to enhance and enrich customer experience the outfit was ready to implement the one-stop-shop business registration and queue management system at the front office to improve customer experience.