In regards to the article “Cipro’s IT provider accused of tender tricks” published in Business Report on February 15, I would like to take the opportunity to respond accordingly.
The article made reference to advice that was provided by our legal division to our information and communication technology division during September 2010. The article suggested that our legal division supported the retention of Valor IT’s services and warned against bringing in a new service provider. These suggestions are incorrect. The Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office (Cipro) legal division was and is not in a position to reflect any choice or preference towards one service provider over another and did not do so in its internal advice during September 2010. Appointment of any service provider is strictly subject to the Cipro supply chain management policy.
It is also important to remember that the decision to terminate the Valor IT contract was taken in 2010 by the accounting officer, and not by our legal division.
In conclusion, we would like to reiterate that the engagement with Waymark (which originally provided the current systems to Cipro) is for the support and maintenance of the current Cipro IT system and not for the development of a new ECM system for which Valor IT was appointed in 2009. The duties to be performed by Waymark do therefore not relate to the duties that were stipulated in the contract between Cipro and Valor IT, which is in line with the advice from our legal division during September 2010.
This support and maintenance of the current Cipro IT system is necessary in order for Cipro to continue fulfilling its operational mandate.
Elsabe Conradie
Executive Manager: Communications,
CIPRO
DA should not mince words on ANC donors
Your item in Business Watch (February 2) refers to a DA complaint about ANC political blackmail to elicit party election funds from local businessmen, and its own unconvincing response to a question about its complicity in failing to identify its own donors.
Firstly, the ANC’s action through Hessequa mayor, Christopher Taute, was blatantly immoral to all but the morally blind, spelling out that municipal tenders could depend on generosity to the party.
Indeed it was possibly criminal extortion and should have been reported as such rather than to the fairly powerless Public Protector.
Secondly, it has to be agreed that the DA is perennially embarrassed and embarrassing on the subject of its supportive stance with the governing party regarding transparency and identification of donors.
“We are not a mature democracy”, it mumbles. What it means, of course, is that donors will not donate if they are to be identified, as they know that the ANC as the governing party incorporating the governing labour federation will make them regret it. Why on earth does the DA not say so, or are we all supposed to get lobotomised and go along with this politically correct rubbish?
Thirdly, I do not expect to see this published. All of the above is known and could easily have been written by the writer of the Business Watch item concerned. But here of course, is not the land of the brave and the media of the free.
Pat Rogers
Somerset West
Worthwhile to keep auditing up to date
This is in response to the article by Usi Waida, “Audit exemption will make accountants add value”, on February 3 as well as the letter from Michael Katz on February 7.
There can be no question that many stakeholders would (and often do) find informational value in a set of financial statements. These include creditors (including those who finance the operations) and staff, the tax man and regulators, but also suppliers and customers. In fact, in our view it is without any doubt unsound governance to prevent these stakeholders from seeing the statements. As for auditing, the first statutory audit (for UK banks) was legislated in 1879 because the financial statements were found to be generally lacking in reliability otherwise; that situation has not changed much today.
What is also most important, is that an auditor will find it extremely difficult (if not in many cases impossible) to retro-audit information that was unaudited (say) four years before; and it is often in doing annual comparisons that a stakeholder finds most value. For this reason it is potentially foolish to argue “We’ll have it audited one day if someone needs it.”
Effectively one needs to keep the auditing up to date. Remember the age-old rule: “5 percent of us are naturally honest; 5 percent are naturally dishonest; the other 90 percent we have to keep honest”. And caveat emptor (“the buyer beware”) if the small and medium enterprises financial statements have not been audited voluntarily; by people who know how.
Charl Kocks
Agency Principal, Ratings Afrika
Stop burning coal, get nuclear power
Michael Kantey of the Coalition Against Nuclear Energy (Cane) may be permitted his own version of nuclear rhetoric – it is prejudiced and fortunately ineffectual, but he is free to expound it. He goes much too far, however, when he claims to speak for others – apparently in his mind for the whole of South Africa. Zuma-like in his presumption that he knows St Peter’s admissions policy, he states that South Africa does not want nuclear power.
Mr Kantey is wrong, I want it, the majority of my friends, acquaintances and business associates want it, and we know that it is the best energy source we have and we know that it will come to South Africa. Ultimately, it will be supplemented by a light layer of solar, wind and perhaps wave energy sources. Critically though, we have to stop burning coal – apart from its pollution, it is far too useful a chemical to merely send up smoke-stacks. In my estimation, the nuclear future is welcomed by far more people in South Africa than the vocal minority who oppose it.
The use of canes and caning have been abandoned by civilised societies – Mr Kantey’s Cane will go the same way.
Chris Everett
Hout Bay