Cipro staff suspended on fraud investigation
August 23, 2009
By Wiseman Khuzwayo
Five staff members at the Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office (Cipro) had been suspended after a probe into fraudulent duplication of companies and close corporations (CCs) began in January, its chief executive said on Friday.
Keith Sendwe said the five, who were junior employees, were part of 145 staff members who had been initially investigated. Elsabe Conradie, Cipro's head of business, said although no managers had been suspended action would be taken against any suspected of involvement.
Sendwe said that a number of cases had been opened with the police against individuals who falsely claimed to be "Cipro agents" to commit fraud.
"Within Cipro, we have zero tolerance when it comes to fraud," he said.
Business Report had highlighted the case of Dumisa Dlamini, who claimed that his CC was cloned at Cipro.
Recently, Politicsweb, which is part of financial website Moneyweb, identified a total of 114 companies that had been duplicated.
Sendwe said that to date the investigation revealed that the fraudsters had falsely claimed associations with entities that were registered on Cipro's database to clone legitimate businesses for financial gain.
A multi-disciplinary task team had been appointed by Cipro management since the cloning scam was uncovered, he said.
"A number of companies have incurred considerable financial losses through the callousness of individuals who participate in these fraudulent activities. We have locked down our systems to make fraudulent activities of this nature impossible in the future and will be prosecuting the perpetrators of these crimes," said Sendwe.
He added that Cipro had put several systems in place to safeguard companies from fraudulent activities.
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