The Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office (Cipro) plans to establish a new commission to streamline and simplify company regulation in South Africa.

Cipro, which is a trading entity of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), said that the decision to create the Companies and Intellectual Property commission emanated from a policy decision in line with the new Companies Act.

The commission would play a comprehensive role in the registering of companies, maintaining company records, investigating complaints, assisting companies with programmes for compliance with the Companies Act, and issuing compliance notices where noncompliance was detected.

Cipro's image and credibility have been tarnished by tender irregularities and irregular and fraudulent transactions over the past couple of years.

Weaknesses in the Cipro system were highlighted recently, when fraudulent electronic changes were made to the listed directors of the multibillion-rand company Kalahari Resources. The case has now evolved in criminal action against the perpetrators headed by controversial businessperson Sandile Majali.

DTI communications director Sidwell Moloantoa said in an emailed response to questions that the new commission would be responsible for the ongoing monitoring of registrations and changes that were made on the register.

"Where fraud is detected, investigations can be conducted and prosecutions be proceeded within the courts by the commission. Matters can also be referred to the National Prosecution Authority.

"Therefore, there will be increased monitoring of compliance and enforcement of the Act in its widest possible terms. This will relieve companies of the burden to always take up matters themselves in civil and/or criminal courts on matters that are a clear violation of the Act," he explained.

Further, Cipro stated that the verification process would be enhanced to reduce or eradicate the fraudulent conduct that had worried businesses over the years.

The organisation had already started with the enhancement of its systems to assist with verifications. The processes would also be coupled with inspections or unannounced site inspection where misrepresentation, false information or fraud was suspected.

Moloantoa said that the current legislative framework had serious gaps in terms of the redress that a company could get in cases such as fraud or any other company law violations. "This is what the new Companies Act and the creation of the commission sought to address."

The commission would also have a responsibility to conduct education and awareness programmes to assist companies to comply with the Act, and would further facilitate dispute resolution through negotiation of undertakings and consent orders where such means were the best options to resolve disputes.

In line with the new Act, unnecessary processes that have previously added to the procedures and forms that companies needed to complete to register would be removed, assisting companies to perform their transactions more direct without a need for a "middleman".

Moloantoa said that the DTI was in the process of recruiting for the commissioner and the deputy-commissioner of the new commission. Other members would be transferred from Cipro and from a business unit called ‘Office of Companies and Intellectual Property Enforcement' within the department.