By Paul Vecchiatto

The Companies and Intellectual Properties Commission (CIPC) has been reducing the backlogs for company registrations, says Trade & Industry Minister Rob Davies.

CIPC used to be known as the Companies and Intellectual Properties Office, and was renamed to comply with the new Companies Act that came into effect earlier this year.

Answering questions on Wednesday in the National Assembly, Davies said for the period from August 1 to August 18, the backlog for company name registrations had been 31,108 outstanding transactions. By August 18 37,220 transactions had been processed leaving an outstanding amount of 3,892 still to be completed.

Davies said that similar progress had been made on company amendments, where directors are changed, and that the backlog had been reduced from 19,000 transactions to 450 outstanding transactions.

He said that CIPC's leadership were deploying more resources to meet its challenges and that the commission was due to present to the Parliament's trade and industry oversight committee on September 13, "...when we expect them to report more progress."

Democratic Alliance MP Tim Harris said that a Parliamentary visit to CIPC offices showed that the commission was unable to answer 1,100 out of a daily receipt of 1,600 questions from the public because it needed 30 more seats in its call center.

Davies said that CIPC would be leaving its premises that were currently located on the Department of Trade & Industry campus in Pretoria, and once that move was completed then the call center capacity would be expanded.

Source: I-Net Bridge