CIPRO gets tough on fraud
Friday, 18 June 2010 Today Lungile Dukwana, Acting Chief Executive Officer of the Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office (CIPRO) announced that a number of CIPRO employees had been dismissed as the outcome of an extensive internal investigation into misrepresentation of qualifications. He added that two of these cases will also be reported to the South African Police Services (SAPS) against individuals who have submitted fraudulent qualifications.
To date the investigation has revealed that the employees falsely claimed education qualifications, which proved to be misrepresented in seven cases. Five cases could not supply the required certificates at all and in two cases fraudulent certificates were submitted to CIPRO. In addition to the seven employees that have been dismissed with immediate effect, five other cases of fraud related issues are being investigated.
"Within CIPRO we have zero tolerance when it comes to fraud. An internal fraud investigation, which commenced in March this year, has resulted in a number of changes and the general tightening up of procedures in order to combat fraud. Our aim is to bring those responsible for fraud to book and to put an action plan in place to prevent any future reoccurrence of any type of fraud," says Dukwana.
CIPRO has in the interim put a number of actions in place to clean up the environment from fraudulent activities. "Apart from bringing these fraudsters to book, the management of CIPRO is doing everything within its power to further improve and strengthen systems and processes in order to combat fraudulent activities. Further controls like the control on credit card payments are already being implemented to eliminate fraud and corruption. Other investigations are also continuing to ensure that a clear message is sent. Investigating employee qualifications is just another way in which CIPRO is clamping down on fraud as part of the CIPRO's fraud prevention and eradication plan," concluded Dukwana.
Statement issued by Dr Elsabé Conradie, Head: Communication, Marketing and Stakeholder Relations, CIPRO, June 18 2010
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