Trouble brewing for South Africa’s new driving licence cards

The Department of Transport’s recently-awarded driving licence machine tender is facing scrutiny, with transport minister Barbara Creecy calling for the Auditor-General of South Africa to widen its investigation into the process.

The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) says it welcomes the decision to probe the tender.

Outa said it highlighted several concerns surrounding the procurement of the new driving licence card machine before the department awarded the tender.

It said Creecy’s announcement followed a meeting between the minister and Outa CEO Wayne Duvenage last week.

The DoT announced on 1 September 2024 that Idemia Identity and Security South Africa had been appointed the preferred bidder.

The announcement was met with backlash from Outa and the Automobile Association of South Africa (AA), citing concerns over the tendering process.

While the DoT hasn’t specified the tender’s value, Outa said it received evidence indicating that the contract’s initial R468 million budget had grown to nearly R900 million.

“Outa has for years repeatedly tried to get information from the DLCA and the department about the new driving licence card machine procurement process but this has been refused,” the civil action organisation said in a statement.

“The department has also refused to make public details of the various tenders and related bidders, including the awarded contract value.”

Outa is concerned that the DoT deliberately manipulated the tender to ensure it was awarded to a specific bidder.

This includes the department repeatedly issuing, withdrawing, and reissuing the tender, as well as implementing three extensions of the price validity period.

Outa believes these actions are highly irregular and discouraged by the National Treasury’s procurement guidelines.

“Since Outa’s exposure of irregularities it has identified on this tender, more people and companies are coming forward to provide us with additional evidence of manipulation and serious irregularities pertaining to this tender,” said Duvenage.

Another issue related to Idemia’s appointment as the preferred bidder is the recent cancellation of the Airport Company South Africa’s (ACSA) contract with the company.

This came after a dispute between Idemia and empowerment partner InfoVerge, resulting in InfoVerge challenging the whole contract in the Gauteng High Court.

Creecy asked the Auditor-General to widen its audit scope for the tender on 5 September 2024, calling for investigations into several key issues, including:

• Whether supply chain management prescripts were followed to the letter.
• Whether the tender’s criteria include sufficient measures to protect the safety of personal data.
• The implications of the procurement process on the recent cancellation of ACSA’s contract with Idemia.
• Whether Idemia’s technical capacity and timeous delivery were adequately considered in the tender process following allegations from ACSA of challenges with Idemia’s biometrics system at three airports.
• Whether South African service providers were considered for the contract.
• Whether the chosen bidder was the most affordable option.

“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,” said Creecy.

New cards will take four days to make

In early September 2023, DoT spokesperson Collen Msibi said the new driving licence card printing process will make it possible to return renewed cards to their holders within four days.

It will also feature a “proper backup system” to prevent backlogs caused by machine breakdowns.

“This is the modernisation of the driving licence system. The new card will have more security features, which will make it quite difficult for anyone to have a counterfeit card,” said Msibi.

“We are looking at about four days, and you will be having your card. It’s one of the issues that we’ve been looking at.”

He noted that while the DoT will have a backup system for incidents when the new machine breaks down, it won’t have a printing machine dedicated to each province in South Africa.

“There’s this notion that each and every province will have its own machine. It’s not going to be like that. Why? Because of the issue of corruption and security,” said Msibi.

“The difference this time around is there’s going to be a proper backup system in case there are breakdowns or maintenance of the system.”

Despite the modernisation of the process, applicants will still need to visit Driving Licence Card Account (DLCA) centres to apply for and renew their driving licence cards.