Registering firms 'a nightmare'

Johannesburg - It's an "absolute nightmare" to get new businesses registered at the Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office (Cipro).

Whereas a year ago a new concern could be registered within a week, the process now easily take six months, says Bruce Wade, the founder of Entrepreneur Incubator, a company helping entrepreneurs to get their businesses off the ground.

The biggest headache is reserving a new name because of the strict rules introduced to prevent name duplication in an effort to combat fraud.

Wade says that the rules are however "incomprehensible" and have for instance prevented one of his clients, a printer's ink merchant, from using the word "ink" in its name because other companies are already doing so.

How can one market an ink company if you cannot use the word "ink" in the name, he protests.

The process has become so slow that reserved names, which are valid for 90 days, expire before the registration process is complete. This means that entrepreneurs have repeat the reservation process.

Cipro, which has had serious system problems since December, preventing users from doing their business electronically, apparently also neglects to collect its post.

Wade comments that the only way to get something to Cipro is by hand-to-hand delivery, when you know who has signed for the post.

But Cipro spokesperson Dr Elsabé Conradie claims it takes an average of only five days to reserve a name and that a close corporation can be registered within a day.

Cipro, which is currently being investigated by the auditor-general for the alleged fraudulent awarding of a R153m contract to upgrade its IT systems, after longer than a week had still not reacted to enquiry about the cause of the problems in its system.

- Sake24.com

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