South African driving licence card problem

The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse’s (Outa) CEO, Wayne Duvenage, has said that manipulating the driving licence card machine tender process was a brazen attempt to ensure that the contract only went to one bidder.

Duvenage was speaking in an interview with Newzroom Afrika, during which he elaborated on the irregularities of the tender bidding process between 2021 and 2023.

Regarding the 25 companies that participated in the bidding process, Duvenage said that “the driver’s licence card account (DLCA) was doing everything in its power to wear down and whittle out people in whichever way they could.”

“Then you start to have fewer and fewer people in the race, and what we saw was that Idemia was the last company to cross the last hurdle as everyone else had been knocked out.”

The DLCA is a unit inside the Department of Transport that was established in 1997 to produce and deliver driving licence cards.

Idemia was the short-listed bidder that won the contract to produce South Africa’s new driving licence card.

However, the process was immediately plunged into controversy because the Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) had just cancelled a contract with Idemia.

Duvenage attributes the whittling down of competition to instances of point manipulation, pricing bid tampering, and multiple other irregularities.

When bidding for a tender, companies undergo three evaluations.

The first is to ensure that they can adhere to the necessary administrative processes, such as having the required tax clearance, competency, and correct management structure.

Once bidders have passed this, their bid undergoes a technical evaluation where they are awarded points based on whether the contract is deemed technically feasible for the company.

Bidders need 24 out of 30 points to pass to the next stage.

Duvenage points out that many bidders were turned down at this phase despite having all the technical requirements to fulfil the bid, with proof of this in their submissions.

In the final phase, the adjudication panel reviews each bidder’s cost proposals, which should have been concealed until this point in the process.

However, Duvenage said many bidders who were disqualified following the technical evaluation had brought forward evidence that their pricing documents had been opened and tampered with.

In addition, Outa obtained evidence that the cost of the contract had jumped from an original budget of R468 million to as much as R899 million.

This followed the DLCA and transport department’s refusal to reveal the details about the cost of the contract and further details about the tendering process.

There were also irregularities in the repeated issuing, withdrawing, and reissuing of the tender, which also saw its price validity period extended three times — something strongly discouraged by National Treasury’s procurement guidelines.

Idemia has faced further controversy after ACSA placed its chief information officer, Mthokozisi Mncwabe, on precautionary suspension over a project involving the French company.

ACSA said a preliminary investigation unearthed indications of malfeasance surrounding the biometric and digital identity technology project involving its Automated Border Control project, e-gates, and single tokens.

The contract was valued at R115 million.

ACSA explained that the contract required at least 30% black ownership and that Idemia had a teaming agreement with local company InfoVerge as its partner.

The airport operator said it became aware of an impasse between Idemia and InfoVerge and engaged with both to try to reach an amicable resolution.

Initially, ACSA was satisfied the companies would work together to deliver the required services. However, the dispute became acrimonious.

“This resulted in InfoVerge approaching the Gauteng High Court, seeking relief to set aside ACSA’s decision to award the tender for the provision of Automated Border Control project to Idemia,” it said.

Idemia said it was unfortunate that ACSA decided to cancel the contract, adding that it remained optimistic about the future.

“We acknowledge and respect ACSA’s decision to terminate the contract for the biometric and digital identity technology project at South African airports,” Idemia said.

“We look forward to the opportunity to participate in ACSA’s re-procurement process.”

Following the outcry over Idemia’s appointment on the driver’s licence card tender, transport minister Barbara Creecy announced that she had requested the Auditor-General to widen the scope of its investigation already being conducted on the process.

“The Auditor-General has been requested to prioritise this audit process given the current backlog for driving license card applications and the parlous state of the current printing machine,” Creecy said.