Driving licence card trouble in South Africa

South Africa’s tender process for producing new driving licence cards has been plagued by constant delays, with many pointing to an irregular bidding process as the cause.

The need for a revamped driving licence card system became evident in 2020 and 2021 after government struggled to clear the significant backlog in renewals caused by the Covid-19 lockdown.

Then-transport minister Fikile Mbalula said the backlogs could also be attributed to high levels of corruption and technical shortcomings in the card-issuing process.

To make matters worse, the country’s sole driving licence card printer experienced a severe breakdown in November 2021 due to an electrical fault. The two-month downtime caused the licence backlog to climb to over one million cards.

In 2022, a report commissioned by the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) found the machine should have been replaced around 2009.

Two years and three tender bidding processes later, the government awarded the tender to the French company Idemia.

The final tender bidding process — advertised in April 2023 — had 25 bidders, of which five were shortlisted by the Department of Transport (DoT).

The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) had gathered information on the tender for some time and noticed several irregularities in the bidding process.

It explained that when bidding for a tender, companies undergo three evaluations.

The first is to ensure 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.

Outa CEO Wayne Duvenage pointed 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.

“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,” Duvenage said regarding Outa’s findings.

The DLCA is an entity within the Department of Transport responsible for issuing driving licence cards.

These allegations regarding the latest bidding process make the first two look even more suspect, as they were issued and withdrawn without details or reasons for cancellation.

There were also three price validity period extensions, which Outa pointed out was highly irregular and discouraged by Treasury’s procurement guidelines.

The price validity period tells the bidder how long their bid must remain valid, helping them to price their bids accordingly.

In June earlier this year, the DoT announced the five preferred bidders.

These were Ren-Form Corporate Print Media, NEC XON Systems, Muehlbauer ID Services, Gemalto Altron Fintech Southern Africa, and Idemia Identity and Security — South Africa.

In August, Idemia was appointed the preferred bidder to print the new cards.

However, suspicion surrounding the tender did not go unnoticed, as transport minister Barbara Creecy announced in September that the Auditor-General would investigate the tender to produce the new card.

“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.

Idemia has told MyBroadband that it remains available for any further clarifications needed for the audit and that subsequent steps can only be defined once it is complete.