Government to deregister 120,000 dormant companies

Kampala. Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB) has said they will delete all companies, which have not been filing annual returns with them, this is to clean up the company register.
In an interview with Daily Monitor on Monday, Mr Vincent Katusi, the director of business registration, said they are embarking on the exercise following increasing complaints against companies, which are failing to compensate former beneficiaries in transactions.
“We have elderly men who registered companies in the 1980s during their youth but are claiming for benefits which they never bothered to register with us. It becomes difficult for us to help them because there is no evidence to their claims,” he said.

He explained that companies as vehicles of business and living entities, are required by the law, to file all transactions that take place during the year throughout its lifespan so that there is a record of the activities it does for future references which is not the case lately.
“You find a company is dealing with Uganda Revenue Authority, Kampala Capital City Authority, Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority but it does not declare its transactions such as change of directors, sell of shares and their profits to us yet it is a legal requirement,” he said.

Mr Katusi said they had registered 500,000 companies as of December 2017 but close to 125,000 were not active.
He said many affected include those established since 1970, some of which the founders died and they have never been closed.

Case backlog
As a result, he said, several people have sued companies and judges are stuck with the cases because of lack of evidence to assist them.
According to Mr Solomon Muyita, the Judiciary spokesperson, of the 36, 000 case backlog they have, many are pending due to lack of evidence.

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