Cipro awards R153m enterprise content management tender

The Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office (Cipro) has awarded a R153-million tender for the implementation of a new enterprise content management (ECM) programme that would transform Cipro into an electronically focused organisation, it announced on Monday.

The tender, which was the largest ever awarded by Cipro, was awarded to information and communication technology services provider Valor IT.

Cipro CEO Keith Sendwe said that the tender, which had been listed on the State Information Technology Agency transversal tender data base in September last year, had been evaluated according to a stringent needs analysis.

Five service providers had submitted tenders by October 8, he added.

Valor IT would, among other things, be responsible for the implementation of the ECM foundation by using service-oriented architecture, which would allow the two-million entities on Cipro’s books to be kept in a uniformed format that could be read by several different devices ranging from computers to cell phones, the organisation reported.

“Over and above increasing revenue and making Cipro’s data base a comprehensive, integrated information tool, the new ECM will help address white-collar crime. Money laundered through various companies will be traced easier, since the ECM solution will have the information in a common format,” commented Cipro chief information officer Dr Michael Twum-Darko.

Meanwhile, the organisation, which formed part of the Department of Trade and Industry, vowed to eradicate fraud and corruption, requesting South African businesses to join in the fight.

“It is imperative that everyone realises that the onus to fight corruption rests on the shoulders of each and every individual, and in each and every company. We live in a country where we all have to take hands to eradicate poverty and establish a healthy, competitive economic environment. Those that are involved in fraud and corruption, literally steal a better life away from their fellow human beings,” stated Sendwe.

He added that the organisation had already started taking steps to ensure a corruption-free environment, one of which was to ensure the integrity of its data was validated.

Cipro reported that it had added in excess of 260 000 new South Africa organisational entities to its data base in 2008 and hoped to increase this number in 2009.