RoS S’wak sees drastic drop in annual returns submissions

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Georgina shows a copy of the Societies Act 1966.

KUCHING: The Registrar of Societies (RoS) has seen a drastic drop in the rate of annual returns submissions to its Sarawak office.

For this year as of May, only 19.9 per cent or 934 registered organisations have filed their annual returns.

Based on RoS Sarawak statistics, the annual returns submission rate dropped from 73.4 per cent or 2,431 registered organisations in 2016 to 44.7 per cent or 2,019 registered organisations last year.

RoS Sarawak director Georgina Apphia Ngau said there are currently 4,687 registered organisations in Sarawak.

“Last year, 100 organisations of various nature were deregistered because they failed to submit their annual returns for at least three consecutive years,” she told a press conference yesterday.

The deregistration process was carried out under Section 13(1) and 13(2) of the Societies Act 1966.

Georgina explained all bodies registered with RoS are required to file in their annual returns 60 days after their respective annual general meetings (AGMs).

She pointed out that this can be done through the eRoses System as stipulated under Section 14(1) of the Societies Act 1966.

“We have made it friendly for everybody because we understand that some of them come from rural areas. With eRoses System, they do not need to submit their annual returns manually.

“All they have to do is log in on our website and fill out the necessary fields like when and where they had their AGMs and the latest line-up of their committee members,” she explained. She said RoS would first deliver a notice of warning to organisations that have failed to submit their annual returns.

“If they still fail to offer an explanation to RoS within 30 days, they would face deregistration under Section 13(2) of the Act,” she said.

Georgina said some organisations claimed they did not have AGMs but triennial general meetings (TGMs).

She pointed out that these organisations are still required to file in their annual returns as stipulated under the existing law.

She said the organisations only had to send in the latest line-up of their committees to help keep RoS Sarawak abreast of their status and activities.

“By right, we should deregister those that fail to submit their annual returns after a year, but we reach out to them first. Hence, those who fail to submit annual returns three years and above, we will have them deregistered,” she said.