THE Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) plans to undertake the bulk deregistration of 345,000 noncompliant entities in the foreseeable future to clean up its database. This follows the deregistration of 6,867 companies and 85,306 close corporations in March. The CIPC system was shut down during May following technical problems. At the time, the CIPC was installing additional servers and it had started work on an improved backup and archiving system. The changes were aimed at improving system performance and security. Commissioner Astrid Ludin said in the organisation’s annual report, tabled in Parliament recently, that this bulk deregistration of entities that had failed to submit their annual returns was aimed to ensure the integrity of the company and close corporation register. The CIPC would continue to deregister noncompliant entities each month. Ms Ludin stressed that collaboration with creditors was essential to ensure that only dormant entities were deregistered. Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies conceded in his opening remarks in the annual report that some progress had been made in improving service delivery but "much work’ remained to be done. The CIPC is responsible for the registration of companies and intellectual property, and is at the heart of the government’s attempts to accelerate the ease of doing business in South Africa, which is ranked 52nd out of 183 countries in the World Bank’s Doing Business Report in terms of the ease of starting a business. South Africa also ranks low in global comparisons of annual growth in entrepreneurial activity — achieving only 6% relative to the average 15% of other low-income countries. "The CIPC has managed to stabilise its operating environment and has the basics in place. I am cautiously optimistic that the next financial year will show continuous improvement in service delivery and ease of transacting," the minister said. The commission has embarked on a three-year transformation process to improve its performance. The collaboration with First National Bank to link the opening of accounts with company registration was very encouraging and "may very well have a positive impact on South Africa’s overall ranking in future surveys" by the World Bank, Mr Davies said. The CIPC plans to work on similar services with other banks. The commission and the South African Revenue Service are also working towards the integration of tax and company registrations, which Mr Davies said was on the cards for the current financial year and would contribute further to the ease of doing business. Also planned for this year, Ms Ludin said, was the roll-out of an e-filing system for intellectual property transactions.
Posted on: Mon, 30 Sep 2013 18:28:46 +0000
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