The Department of Transport announced on Monday that identity and security French company, IDEMIA, was the preferred bidder to roll out the new smart card driving licence.
The security company’s appointment was approved on August 8, following a month-long bidding process between April and May 2023.
The department’s spokesperson, Collen Msibi said five companies were selected to vie for the tender.
“This resulted in five bidder’s responses that were received and subjected to a thorough and transparent process of evaluation and adjudication by the bidding committee,” said Msibi.
The bidding process was compliant with the prescribed legislation and policies.
Msibi explained IDEMIA is expected to enter into a service-level agreement with the department in due course before production commences.
“More information in terms of time frames will thereafter be made available to the public once the service agreement has been signed,” said Msibi.
He mentioned smart card driving licences will continue to be manufactured centrally to eliminate increased risks of counterfeit and fraudulent driving licences.
However, the AA blasted IDEMIA’s appointment as the chosen smart card producers.
The AA questioned the hiring process, raising concern that a foreign company was recruited to render services, instead of a local company.
Thus, the association demanded the merits on which IDEMIA was selected to be made public, adding it planned communication with the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, and other bodies.
“In mid-June, we posed several questions to the department in relation to this process, but we have so far not received any response. Among the questions we asked were the level of involvement, if any, by the Government Printing Works (GPW) in the process of drafting and evaluating bidders. And why the GPW had not been considered the sole provider of this service given that they perform the government’s security printing function.
“This also raises questions as to why the other four bidders were not appointed. The public has the right to know how this project is unfolding, but the lack of clarity in the appointment of the preferred bidder, including the apparent secrecy with which the tender was issued, raises concerns,” said the AA.
The AA rebuked the department for claiming it was “on track” to deliver smart card licences and printing equipment for the country amid initial challenges of finding service providers.
“Yet we still don’t know what these ‘challenges’ are, or how they impacted the finalisation of IDEMIA as the preferred bidder,” said the AA.
IDEMIA’s appointment was shortly after the Airports Company of South Africa (ACSA) terminated its contract with the security company for Automated Border Control last week.
ACSA said termination of the contract was under investigation.
According to the AA, the terminated contract suggested syphoning of public funds, which should propel tender transparency from the department.
“Huge amounts of public funds are at play in this process. The public, justifiably, has a right to understand to whom this money will be paid and how it will be allocated,” said the AA.
Additionally, the AA highlighted a robust need for digitising driving licences to mitigate future cases of fraud.
“We must question why the digitisation of licence cards is not top of the agenda at the department. The ability to manage driving licences through fingerprints would be more secure, especially given the rate of forgery of physical cards,” said the AA.
Msibi clarified that smart card driving licences were approved by the department.
According to media reports, the country has only one driving licence production machine, which had broken multiple times due to technicalities, resulting in a backlog in card production and distribution.
Hence, the department said in April it would outsource a printing machine from France.
The Star