NIGERIA: CHURCHES MUST SUBMIT DETAILS OF THEIR FINANCES – FG REPLIES CAN

By Native Reporters August 22, 2020

The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) has said that there will be no going back on the new Company and Allied Matters Act (CAMA). CAC said the new act has come to stay in the country despite the public outcry that has greeted it.

The Commission said it was only waiting for the legislature to gazette it for immediate implementation of the law.

The CAMA bill was recently signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari, and was included in his list of achievements for the last one year.

The Christians Association of Nigeria (CAN), had recently described CAMA as satanic, demanding that the President halts the implementation of “the obnoxious and ungodly law until religious institutions are exempted from it.”

The CAC Registrar-General, Alhaji Garba Abubakar, while speaking to Commerce Correspondents Association of Nigeria (CICAN) in Abuja yesterday wondered why the act was being opposed by religious bodies, especially the churches.

“They must henceforth subject their finances and expenditures for proper auditing, and copies sent to us at the CAC,” he said.

He explained further, “The new legal framework applies to all organizations registered with us; be it a religious organisation, NGO or CSO.

“Remember that they also have constitutions guiding them. The criteria to be a trustee of registered organisations are clearly spelt out in the laws establishing them.

“How is it that a registered member who qualifies to be a trustee in an organisation would not want government to know how the organisation is run? What are the responsibilities of the trustees?

“What are the responsibilities of the governing council or the board? How do you manage the affairs of the organisation? How do you use or expend the income and properties of the organisation? How do you appoint members of the governing board? These are the issues the new CAMA has come to address.”