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Featured Commitment: Establish Beneficial Ownership Registry

Compromiso destacado: crear un registro de beneficiarios reales

Engagement en vedette: Établir un registre de propriété effective

What's in the 2019 Action Plans

This commitment story is featured in What’s in the 2019 Action Plans. Read the full publication here. 

What’s in the 2019 Action Plans Explore commitments OGP members made in their 2019 action plans, including commitments to watch in each of the eight focus policy areas in OGP’s three year strategy.

Nigeria’s lack of commercial due diligence requirements has enabled money laundering, drug trafficking, terrorism, and grand corruption. To address these issues, Nigeria made a commitment in its 2017 OGP action plan to collect and disclose beneficial ownership information. Although a website was launched to house data for the extractives sector, the required legislation was not adopted. In 2019, Nigeria committed to push ahead with legally requiring the collection of beneficial ownership information and publishing it in open register according to international standards. In August of 2020, President Muhammadu Buhari signed the new beneficial ownership registry into law as part of the Companies and Allied Matters Act, 2020 (CAMA). The government plans to raise awareness of the register and train people on to use it. Altogether, this reform could mobilize domestic resources and fight corruption by making it harder for people to use anonymous companies to avoid taxation and contribute to illicit financial flows.

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Featured Photo: Nigerian construction workers on site. Nigeria’s new registry will publicly disclose beneficial owners in various industries including construction and extractives. Photo by Arne Hoel / World Bank

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Open Government Partnership