The Registrar General’s Department has begun inspecting all businesses and companies operating in the country.

The Department has, therefore, directed Sole Proprietors, Partners, Company Secretaries, Directors, Shareholders, Local Managers and Auditors of companies, to provide copies of their Company’s certificate of incorporation, commencement of business, annual returns, and evidence of current renewal of business registration to the team for inspection.

A statement signed by Ms Constance Adomaa Takyi, the Public Relations Officer, also urged companies to provide their current Audited Accounts or Nil returns whichever, is applicable, depending on the date of incorporation.

“The Filing of annual returns is mandatory as stated in Section 122 (1&2) of the Companies Act, 1963, (Act 179), that a company shall file its annual returns eighteen (18) months after Incorporation and at least in once every year thereafter”.

The statement urged companies to take notice because failure to file their annual returns after the deadline would automatically attract a fine of 12 penalty units for each day in default whilst that of business names would elapse completely.

"Businesses and companies who do not update their records after the deadline would automatically be considered as being inactive," it said.

The statement said inspectors from the Registrar-General's Department would have their staff identification tags on.

The first phase of the exercise, which started in the last quarter of 2015, resulted in many companies adhering to the earlier press release by updating their records with the Department.

However, it noted that, a lot more companies had not complied with the directive of updating their records as well as filing their annual returns.