GOVERNMENT IS SHARPENING ITS SYSTEMS TO ENSURE EFFICIENCY AND COMPLIANCE – DEPUTY MINISTER MASINA

GOVERNMENT IS SHARPENING ITS SYSTEMS TO ENSURE EFFICIENCY AND COMPLIANCE – DEPUTY MINISTER MASINA

The Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Mzwandile Masina says government is sharpening its systems to ensure efficiency and deal with challenges. He was speaking at the launch of a system of application of Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) certificates through the Companies Intellectual Properties Commission (CIPC) self-service terminals, in Pretoria today.

“Amongst the timeous challenges that emerge are such regressive things as unscrupulous intermediaries, fraudulent certificates and unregulated fees in the process of B-BBEE certification. These challenges impose the need for us to constantly improve our technical systems and registration process in a manner that averts these mostly criminal challenges whilst providing services in a convenient manner,” said Masina.

He highlighted that the challenges mostly affect small businesses which must ideally be exempt from many compliance measures but were now being affected by unscrupulous incidents in the verification industry.

According to Masina, the new system has been designed to ensure that services are accessed with ease so that beneficiaries are able to participate in the economy and that government’s transformation agenda is realised.

“We have been taken for a ride and therefore we want to deal with this fraud by ensuring that our certificates can be verified. These are compliance and regulatory issues we are dealing with and we need the industry to work with us to protect public funds,” he added.

Masina also highlighted that the service would be available to micro enterprises with a turnover of R1 million-R10 million.

The Commissioner of CIPC Ms Astrid Ludin said there were plans in place to ensure that the self-service terminals are available throughout the country.

“We currently have 42 terminals in Pretoria, Johannesburg and Cape Town. We are rolling out these terminals to the Eastern Cape and the Northern Cape Provinces soon,” added Ludin.

She said partnerships were being explored to ensure that the services were available to everyone and provided at a low cost. According to Ludin, the services are fully automated and rely on verification from Department of Home Affairs.

The Chief Executive Officer of State Owned Enterprises Procurement Forum (SOEPF) Mr Kamogelo Mampane pledged SOEPF’s support to the process by partnering with the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti) and CIPC to ensure that the system becomes � available throughout the country, in government entities.

The new service will enable CIPC customers who are registering private companies through the terminals to also apply for B-BBEE certificates at the end of the company registration transaction or when they file their CIPC annual returns. Through this process, the B-BBEE certificates will be issued for free to registrants.