By Roy Cokayne.
The Department of Transport (DoT) said on Sunday it is on track to deliver a new driving licence card and printing equipment for the country “amid the initial challenges of finding suitable service provider/s”.
“With the evaluation and adjudication of the bids completed, the department is almost at the brink of pronouncing a new dawn in the driving licence card environment, with the audit process being the only last hurdle standing in the way,” it said.
This follows Moneyweb reporting on 5 June 2024 that serious concern has been expressed by civil society organisations about the complete lack of transparency by the DoT regarding the procurement process for the acquisition of a machine to produce the new smart card driving licences.
Minister of Transport Sindisiwe Chikunga has indicated twice in the past two months that the department is at “the tail end” of the appointment of the supplier of the new machine.
Cabinet in August 2022 approved the introduction of a new smart card driving licence in SA.
The department said on Sunday it embarked on its first attempt to source a service provider to deliver a turnkey solution. It said this bid was advertised on 10 November 2022 but the process was unsuccessful, resulting in readvertisement of the bid on 5 April 2023.
Requests for clarity
The department was sent a number of queries from Moneyweb more than two weeks ago – including where the bid was advertised – and responded on Sunday.
It said: “Bid DLCA/2023/01: Provision of a turnkey solution for personalisation of smart driving cards in South Africa was advertised in the government tender portal.
“The above bid closed on May 5th, 2023, and owing to its technical complexity, this bid continues to be under consideration, which requires the department to adhere to prescribed SCM [Supply Chain Management] prescripts and regulations.”
The new driving licence card was anticipated to be launched before the end of the 2023/24 financial year.
The department said on Sunday that, guided by SCM prescripts and regulations, it could reveal that five bids were received.
However, it did not disclose the value of the bids or respond to any of the other questions emailed to it by Moneyweb.
The department said bids were received from:
- Ren-Form Corporate Print Media;
- Nec Xon Systems (Pty) Ltd;
- Muehlbauer ID Services GmbH;
- Gemalto Altron Fintech Southern Africa (Pty) Ltd; and
- Idemia Identity and Security – South Africa.
It emphasised that with evaluation and adjudication completed, the bid is now undergoing standard and required department probity/audit processes, and that it cannot finalise the bid process until this is completed.
“The department pleads for patience as it is prohibited by law not to poke its nose into the affairs of bidding committees,” it said.
“In compliance with the rule and regulations on tender processes, the department can therefore not be characterised as lacking transparency.
“The department will pronounce on this matter when all processes have been completed.”
Questions remain …
Three of the questions put to the department have not been responded to:
- [Regarding] the advertisement published of the tender/request for proposals for the procurement of the new machine … can you provide us with a copy of this advertisement?
- Were the various bids received for this tender/request for proposals opened in public after the closure of the tender?
- Can you provide us with … the value of [the] bids [received] for this tender/request for proposals?
Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) CEO Makhosini Msibi confirmed last month that the new tender for the procurement of the machine had been evaluated and was “in the process of being awarded” and “at the final stage”.
He said the process to award the tender involved evaluating and adjudicating the bids received before a recommendation is presented to the director-general of the DoT for approval before the award is announced by the minister of transport.
Target date missed
In an exclusive interview with Moneyweb last month, Chikunga said there was a proper procurement process to acquire the new machine but stressed that it was “a long time ago and we are at the tail end of the appointment”.
“In fact they had to go to countries that had tendered. They went there to look at what they said they had,” she said.
Chikunga said in response to a question about the new driving licence at a media briefing in April, on the eve of the scrapping of e-tolls, that the department would print and launch the first 100 new driving licence cards per province by the end of April 2024.
This has not yet happened.
Chikunga said last month that: “The procurement process takes its own time sometimes, particularly because they had to go to France to look at what they said they had and other countries as well to look at what they had.”
No trace of tender advert
Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) CEO Wayne Duvenage said he had a meeting with the director-general of transport last year about a number of issues and, at the time, specifically requested that Outa “be kept in the loop” about when this tender was published and its specifications.
“We said we would like to monitor this process, and he [the director-general] said yes, we will be [kept in the loop], but we heard nothing.”
Both Duvenage and Automobile Association (AA) spokesperson Layton Beard say they have been unable to trace any advertisement for this procurement process.
Duvenage said the lack of transparency by the Department of Transport about this procurement process “is worrying, very worrying”.
“When they continue to not provide clarity on this, then something stinks. It just doesn’t make sense anymore. This lack of clarity does not do them [the department] any favours in convincing us that they are following due process.”
Surely the DoT should want to avoid controversy?
Duvenage said Outa would expect the minister and the department to be very clear and careful to ensure that there is clarity about the procurement process, that the best price is obtained, and that no irregularities take place.
“But when you hear about all this happening, you lose faith and don’t get the impression that is going to be the case,” he said.
Beard stressed that South Africans have a right to know who was involved in the procurement process, who won the contract, and how much it will cost.
The multi-million-rand contract award for South Africa’s first credit card-type driving licence card was mired in controversy.
It was awarded in 1997 to Prodiba, a consortium that had links to Schabir Shaik, the controversial former financial advisor to former president Jacob Zuma, and to French company Thomson CSF, which was subsequently renamed Thales and is implicated in the allegedly corrupt Arms Deal.
Chikunga has confirmed that the Department of Transport will acquire only one new machine to produce the new driving licence cards.
This is despite the current machine breaking down towards the end of 2021, causing a delay in motorists receiving their new driving licences and a backlog in the production of driving licence cards.