COVID-19: Customers reject courier services, protest CAC electronic delivery policy

Customers are protesting the proposed Policy of the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) to end physical contact during the process of company registration and have adopted courier and mailing services to reach customers as a means of preventing the spread of COVID-19.

The proposed policy which takes effects from tomorrow will fully be implemented by August 10th which will mark an end to customers visit the Commission Headquarters in the course of registration.

Disagreeing with the policy, customers on Thursday stormed the Headquarters of CAC protesting against the policy that it was against the ease of doing business of the current administration.

Responding to the issue surrounding the Protest, CAC said company registration certificates under the new policy will be sent to customers through courier services or electronically to avoid physical contact with clients.

The Registrar General of CAC, Garba Abubakar said since the lockdown as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic was eased off by the Federal Government, “the premises of the commission has always been overwhelmed with clients which forced the management to take a drastic decision in compliance with the COVID-19 protocols to stop the spread of the pandemic.

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” We are a responsible institution. We have to abide by government directives. We cannot continue with this crowd in this place and somethings have to give way.

“What we have done is to insist that mailing not have any physical contact with customers any longer. From tomorrow all new certificate will be sent through courier companies and the customers will bear the cost because they are paying for transport or buying fuel to drive themselves to this place, they can as well pay the cost of delivery.
From 10th August every other process will be done by mailing” he said.

Abubakar explained further that only skeletal service will be carried out at the Commission as outsiders will no longer have access to sensitive documents as practised in the past but operate based on accepted global standard practices.

“We have been forced to revisit the existing system of dealing with our customers because since the ease of lockdown we have been allowing customers to come to the commission to do their transactions but the crowd is becoming uncontrollable and it appears to negate the COVID-19 protocol issued by the Federal Government on social distancing and the maximum number of persons that should be at a place at a time.

“It was because of these concerns and the fact that based on the protocol, we are not supposed to work with the full complement of our staff.

“The government guidelines say only officers on level 14 and above should be coming to the office and they work from 8 am to 2 pm. For an organisation like ours that registers companies, maintains a record of companies and also issue information to members of the public, it has been quite challenging because, in the past, we have service timeline where most of this services are delivered within 24 hours.

“With this restriction on the number of personnel and the working hours, it is impossible to meet those timelines. So we are forced to suspend those service timelines and we made that known to the customers” he stated.

The RG called on customers to show understanding, “we trying to press on the customers to understand that this is unusual times and in as much as we want efficient services, it is not possible under the present circumstance” he stated.

 

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