CIPC's new website isn't working

29 September 2014

Two weeks ago, Minister Rob Davies and the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) launched a new website, which was supposed to make starting and running a business much easier. The launch was headlined "Don't call, Don't queue". But it seems that it has backfired.

Users are reporting that they have been unable to register new businesses online since the site launched, as it freezes as soon as new applications are submitted. Similarly, the submission process for company annual returns, and company name applications works only intermittently.

The website's non-performance has not only resulted in extended call times and queues but adds to difficulty in starting a business in South Africa, making it harder to provide jobs to millions of unemployed. The DA has received hundreds of complaints in the last few days from frustrated entrepreneurs, accountants and small business service providers who cannot access any CIPC services via the new website.

I will today write to the Commissioner of the CIPC, Ms Astrid Ludin, and Minister Davies, to request that the CIPC take urgent interim steps to ensure that service is restored immediately. At the very least, I believe that all CIPC offices and staff, including the national call centre, should work longer hours until the online service is restored and the backlog is dealt with. The CIPC should also explain why the website was not sufficiently tested before it went live. 

With the website down, a number of important functions are not accessible. Critically, new businesses can't be registered online. This means new business registrations can only be done manually - a process which still takes several weeks. And with the CIPC call centre only answering 31% of calls (according to its own annual report), entrepreneurs are left with no other way of contacting the Commission and getting the responses they need to begin trading.

Last week Commissioner Ludin appeared before the Portfolio Committee on Trade and Industry and presented the website launch as a major improvement in the slow and unresponsive service for which the CIPC has been known in the past. 

The DA welcomes the move to a greater use of technology in delivering critical services. But the new website should have been thoroughly tested before going live. Service delivery standards at the CIPC have traditionally been unacceptably slow, and this website shut-down will only further increase the backlog of companies trying to register at the CIPC.

Statement issued by Geordin Hill-Lewis MP, DA Shadow Minister of Trade and Industry, September 29 2014

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