CIPC upgrades E-services and BizPortal platforms

The Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) has upgraded its E-services and BizPortal platforms in a bid to significantly reduce red tape when conducting business in South Africa and enhance the “ease of doing business”.

However, on the first day of the platforms’ upgrade (9 January), users encountered teething problems, struggling to access the sites.

In response, the CIPC indicated in a brief tweet that its sites were offline due to technical issues and that it was working to resolve the issue. In an official statement issued later, on Monday evening, it said the biggest issue with accessing the sites was out of its control.

“The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) experienced system issues, which the CIPC relies on for verification, earlier today. This resulted in some customers not being able to submit new applications and/or [having] received error messaging for OTP verification.”

While relevant office staff were attending to the delays caused by the verification issue, the commission said there may be other isolated issues and it urged customers to log fault tickets on its query resolution system (QRS).

“The CIPC wishes to extend an apology to affected customers for the inconvenience caused to them,” it noted.

It also issued a tweet on Tuesday, assuring users that various issues were being addressed:

Dear Customers,
CIPC is aware of challenges regarding the following functions:
1. Name reservations and approvals 
2. Company registrations
3. Amending of directors
4. Lodging of Annual Returns

Our ICT team is working on resolving the issue.

— Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (@theCIPC) January 10, 2023

In a statement issued earlier on Monday, CIPC CIO Phineas Mogale had said: “We have conducted extensive testing and continue to rigorously test the new systems in order to ensure seamless transitions as far as possible. Although we do not anticipate any issues, it is however realistic to expect teething problems that we will attend to with speedy resolution.”

Good intentions

CIPC commissioner Advocate Rory Voller earlier stated that the commission’s continuous efforts to reduce red tape, while adhering to the legislative mandate, are geared at attracting investment into South Africa, thereby creating employment opportunities and stimulating economic growth.

The government agency says the platforms’ key improvements include the automation and simplification of foreign director assurance. “Multiple company registration and maintenance functions will be combined, ensuring improved efficiencies whilst adhering to legislative requirements.”

It says users of its E-services platform can expect an updated, automated director change process, along with the ability to file annual returns while conducting additional transactions – in a single step.

It further notes that its revamped platforms will also allow security authenticated bank cards as a payment method to conclude transactions, with electronic funds transfer and historic payment methods, which allowed for declining balances, set to be phased out. Customers will be required to use debit/credit cards as a payment method on the revamped platforms.

It anticipates that the change in payment method and improvements will boost turnaround times, subsequently improving customer experience.

The commission says the platform improvements are part of its innovation journey, which entails the migration of its processes into new modern platforms along with the automation of all processes.

Nondumiso Lehutso is a Moneyweb intern.