This certificate, popularly called the SCUML certificate is one of the greatest nightmares of most business owners today. I will come to why that in a moment. But first,
What is the SCUML certificate all about?
SCUML stands for Special Control Unit on Money Laundering, and it’s the EFCC themselves that issues the certificates. It is a certificate that is mandatory for any business that falls into a class of business called the DESIGNATED NON FINANCIAL INSTITUTION. Examples of such business class include businesses that are into:
- Sales of jewelry
- Estate management
- Freight and Forwarding
- Construction
- Mechanized Farming
- Consultancy, and about 17 more categories.
Why is the Scuml certificate is a nightmare for some business owners?
Um, the reason is this. From our almost everyday interactions with clients who need the certificate, it turned out that 90% of them stumbled into needing the certificate. And because of that, their business incorporation gets stuck along the way. The problem with this certificate starts when businesses get registered with CAC in the first place. Perhaps because the businesses registered the CAC on their own, or they handed it over to somebody that is not that experienced, then by omission or commission, they implicate themselves into needing this SCUML certificate.
A practical example?
Let’s take for example that a business is into cleaning services. Then he goes to register his business with CAC. And by reason of over sabi or over professionalism, the owner of the business includes in the registration, a word like estate cleaning as part of his services. That business owner don buy market with SCUML like that.
Well, nobody will query the registration. In fact, CAC will approve the certificate without issues. And in the mind of the business owner, his business is taking shape.
Then one day he walks into the bank and wants to get a corporate account, that is a business account for his business. Normally your bank would ask you to provide your CAC documents. You provide it to them and as they go through it, they come across the word ESTATE there.
They tell you that your business is one of the designated non-financial institutions, that you will be needing this SCUML certificate. You protest and tell them, NO! I’m not into estate management, I just do estate cleaning. Uh, we know how tough banks can be. They tell you, sorry, we can see estate in your business, you just have to provide the certificate. If you don’t provide it within a period of 60 days, they will have to restrict your business account. Now, you quickly pick up your phone and search online. What is SCUML? It takes you to our website blog.
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An effort to solve the problem?
You click on it to read. Then after reading, to know more, you click on the support button. It pushes you to chat with one of our customer agents. You lay your complaint to him or her, and she tells you, to get your SCUML certificate, you must provide a professional certification related to the category of business you fall into. In this case, you ll be providing the Institute of Quantity surveyors Certification.
At this point, you’ll begin to wonder, how did you exactly get here? You never bargained for any of this. You get angry, you don’t know what to do again, and truly, there is not so much you can do right now. Because to get that professional certification, the NIQS certification now, it costs some hundreds of thousands, and you are not willing to pay that.
And even if you are willing to pay it, the board in charge of such, will also make you to provide a backup credential, perhaps your B.SC in that field. And you don’t have any of them as you are not in that field.
The mistake?
Just by making the mistake of, including the word estate in your certificate, you’ve stumbled into providing a SCUML certificate, which you did not bargain for.
That has been the case for most businesses who complain to us every now and then. Yes, it has always been the case.
What Next?
At this point, the only thing you can now do is to abandon that registration completely and start a new registration and avoid those implicating words or you go for a post incorporation with CAC and get that very word removed from your document.
Final take on the Scuml Certificate?
The take is this, be very mindful of who registers your business with CAC, so you don’t run into a penny wise, pound foolish venture on the long run. Well, if you have a personal experience in getting the SCUML Certificate, you can share with others in the comment section, and if you have more questions, feel free to reach out to us on social media, everywhere, you can reach us at Zfrica.
In our next post, I will talk about, specifically, all it takes to get the SCUML Certificate.
And until then. Have a nice time.
