Pretoria - The Department of Trade and Industry (dti) has noted with disappointment calls by the Democratic Alliance to place the Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office (CIPRO) under administration.
"The statement reflects opportunistic obsession with events of the past, which CIPRO has been responding to for a while now.
"[It] is successfully transcending through series of interventions to strengthen administrative controls and close loopholes," said dti spokesperson, Sidwell Medupe, on Wednesday.
CIPRO has gone through trying times recently, including capacity challenges which made submitting annual tax returns difficult. It also faced difficulties with its database.
The DA issued a media statement on Tuesday calling for CIPRO, a directorate of the dti, to be forensically audited and placed under administration.
Medupe reported that companies have since been asked to reconfirm their directors on the CIPRO database. He said the response was encouraging.
"All of this work, including data cleansing exercise being conducted with the support of Statistics SA... is part of the ground work for the establishment of the Company and Intellectual Property Commission, in terms of the new 2008 Companies Act," said Medupe.
The new commission was expected to take over all CIPRO functions. Management would be overhauled and all leadership directly accountable to Parliament.
CIPRO will consequently cease to exist.
Medupe said the dti was surprised by the DA's call, as it has been kept in the picture of changes being implemented at CIPRO.
The decision to turn CIPRO into a commission was made six years ago as part of the department's corporate law reform.
