Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies on Friday set himself a month to announce steps to deal with alleged tender-rigging at the troubled Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office (Cipro).

Davies said that he would on May 18 give Parliament's watchdog Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) the results of a departmental probe on the awarding of a R153-million enterprise content management system contract by Cipro to Valor IT.

"We've had to determine whether the successful bidder had information that was not available to other bidders," he told Parliament's portfolio committee on trade and industry.

"Our investigation gave us the basis where the director-general (of trade and industry) can respond to that question from the Attorney-General. We are now taking legal advice on the options with respect to how we need to act."

A report by the AG released on Friday noted that the successful bidder was the only one whose "proposal was within a range of 2% of the estimated price as contained in the business case".

It instructed the department to determine whether the company had inside information. If so, the AG said, the contract "should be reconsidered and those responsible should be held accountable".

Davies told the committee that his department was not yet ready to announce its plan of action but would do so when it faced Scopa next month.

"It is our intention to go before Scopa and give some indication of how we intend to act. We cannot do that today, we are still in the process of deciding how to act."

He said that the department needed to follow proper procedure regarding the probe as it could potentially lead to litigation.

Cipro acting CEO Lungile Dikwana told reporters that the contract for the management system had not been put on hold pending the outcome of the internal investigation.

Valor IT has completed the first phase of work and was being paid pro rata as it advanced with the project.

Davies rejected allegations by the opposition that the department of trade and industry had been "dragging its feet" on the issue and said it was determined to root out corruption at Cipro and restore the integrity of the office.

"The position the executive authority adopted is that the integrity of an organisation like Cipro is quite fundamental," the minister said.

"We have to react in a way that restores the integrity of Cipro."

He said he did not think the department had erred by terminating an independent forensic investigation into the allegations of tender-rigging last month as it had by then yielded "quite a lot of detail".

The department believed it could competently complete the work.

"The decision was also prompted by the need on our side to put the episode behind us and get on with the broader challenge of making Cipro an organisation of integrity."

Davies said that several law enforcement agencies were probing other allegations of fraud and corruption at Cipro, which had led to the suspension of six officials.

Dikwana told MPs that only two officials remained suspended from their duties, while "some have been fired" for irregularities that might have impacted on Cipro's turnaround time in handling company registrations.

Davies confirmed that Cipro CEO Keith Sendwe, who was reportedly suspended last month as part of the probe into tender-rigging, remained "on sick leave".

He said that a senior official had been suspended after four staff members who were suspended claimed they were in fact being victimised for blowing the whistle on wrongdoing at Cipro.

"There was an allegation that the person interfered when people wanted to make declarations to our investigators."

The four had been reinstated.