By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Transport Minister Barbara Creecy has instructed the Department of Transport (DoT) to lodge a High Court application for a declaratory order on how to proceed with the driving licence card machine tender, given the Auditor General’s (AG) audit report.
Creecy has received the final report from the AG last month on the investigation into serious irregularities about the procurement process for the provision of a new machine for the production of the planned new driving licence card.
This followed the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) providing Creecy with new evidence of serious irregularities in the tender decision.
The investigation by the AG, among other things, identified instances of non-compliance with the required procurement processes emanating from transgressions of supply chain management prescripts, including the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA), National Treasury regulations and DLCA supply chain management (SCM) policies, which rendered the procurement process irregular.
The AG further noted the bid evaluation committee deviated from assessing the bids using the exact criteria set out in the bid specifications when evaluating documents provided by bidders. This led to discrepancies identified by the AG’s office, resulting in an unfair and non-transparent procurement process.
The AG said the inconsistencies extended beyond technical evaluation to site visits conducted by the DLCA.
During these visits, the DLCA was supposed to confirm that the machine proposed by the bidder, IDEMIA’s MX8100, had the required capacity and capability to deliver on the requirements. However, the AG investigation found the DLCA chose to inspect an unrelated machine.
The AG said the deviation from the bid specifications and the use of ambiguous criteria undermine the fairness and transparency of the procurement process.
The investigation report has further indicated that while the current non-compliances do not indicate fraud risk factors, their impact will be fully evaluated during the final regularity audit of 2024/2025. At the date of this report, implementation and payment had not commenced, it said.
The AG concluded its report by remarking: “The AG audit of the DLCA’s SCM processes revealed irregularities in the tender evaluation. IDEMIA, the winning bidder, failed to meet key bid technical requirements.
DoT spokesperson Collen Msibi said on Wednesday the department is exploring various interim solutions to sustain the operations of the current machine, given its age.
“The interim measures will be announced in due course,” he said.
Creecy instructed the AG in September 2024 to expedite and widen the audit scope of the procurement process after new evidence emerged of serious irregularities in the decision to make IDEMIA the preferred bidder.
The tender was awarded to Idemia in 2024, but the AG has clarified that no payments have been made to the service provider.