The Completed ORC Building in Ksi
CONSTRUCTION OF the first office building complex for the Office of the Registrar of Companies (ORC) has been completed in Kumasi, the Ashanti Region.
The building, which will be commissioned on Monday, July 17, 2023, is expected to serve the people in the region and some parts of the Western, Oti and the Eastern Regions.
It boasts of 34 offices, two conference halls, four kitchenettes, 21 lavatories, two large car parks, a janitor’s office, pantry, canteen, reception and a security office.
The Registrar General’s Department (RGD) sponsored the construction of the building from the initial stages with its internally generated funds up till 2019 when the ORC took over following its creation by an Act of Parliament, Companies Act, 2019 (Act 992) which made it solely responsible for the registration, administration and regulation of businesses in the country.
The construction of the building began in 2012 and was expected to be completed by 2015, but it delayed due to unforeseen challenges until 2022 when it was finally completed.
Speaking in an interview, head of the Ashanti Regional branch of the ORC, Nana Ama Akyiaa Prempeh, explained that prior to the construction the RGD was operating from rented premises at Dadiesoaba, a suburb in Kumasi.
She said the office which had occupied the private building since its establishment in Kumasi in 2007, was suddenly threatened with eviction in 2012 by the landlady who had decided to sell off her property.
Nana Ama Akyiaa Prempeh, who was then in-charge of the RGD in the region, noted that the office, which was under the administration of Joseph Kofi Harlley, the then Registrar General decided that it was time for the Ashanti Region as the commercial hub of the nation to have an office befitting its status to promote uninterrupted services.
Subsequently, they found a piece of land close to the St. George’s Church opposite the Catering Rest House along the Fuller Road at Adum to put up the building.
The ORC regional boss said, like her predecessor, the then Registrar General, Jemima Oware, who succeeded Kofi Harlley competently supervised the construction of the building from 2015 until it was completed and handed over in June, 2022.
She said the completion of the building coincided with the birth of the ORC which has brought sanity and high patronage in business registration in the region, considering its easy accessibility.
Nana Ama Akyiaa Prempeh pledged her outfit’s commitment to the culture of maintenance, stressing that every effort would be made to ensure that the building was kept in a good condition at all times.
Meanwhile, the ORC is embarking on a float in the principal streets of Kumasi today beginning from 9am, as part of activities marking the commissioning of the building.
FROM James Quansah, Kumasi