‘Businesses operating in legislative vacuum, uncertainty over stalled CAMA’
Notwithstanding the controversies trailing the revised Company and Allied Matters Act [2020] as assented to by President Muhammadu Buhari, the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has asked the government to gazette the Act to avoid the stalling of business activities in the country.
Noting that non-availability of the gazetted copy of CAMA 2020 has stalled many activities in the business environment, as such activities are anchored on the new legislation, the chamber argued that the law could be revised after it is gazetted.
Some groups, especially religious institutions had kicked against some of the provisions of the amended Act, citing sections 839(1) and (2) of the law where a Minister is empowered “to suspend trustees of an association (in this case, the church) and appoint the interim managers to manage the affairs of the association for some given reasons.”
However, the LCCI, through its Director-General, Dr. Muda Yusuf, yesterday, stated that the six weeks delay in the gazetting of the Act, makes it a law that cannot be operationalized.
According to the chamber, the situation has created enormous uncertainty in business decisions that require the legislative anchor of CAMA 2020 to progress.
“As it were, a legislative vacuum has been created. The CAMA 1990 has been repealed, CAMA 2020 is yet to be gazetted, six weeks after assent.
“It is important that the bureaucracy works in tandem with the new normal of leveraging technology so that the desired outcomes of reforms can be achieved, and expeditiously too. The implementation of the E-Government programmes should be accelerated to make the public service smarter, efficient and cost effective.
“Given the current wave of digital revolution sweeping across the public and private sectors, the role of the Federal Government Press in the dissemination of official legislations and other publications is at risk of diminishing relevance.
“It has become imperative for electronic copies of official publications to be promptly disseminated to the public to ensure swift activation and access to the benefits and values which such publications offer for the economy and the society” Yusuf added.
