Driving licence tender: AG says Transport Dept officials inspected the wrong machine
On Wednesday, the AG's office released its interim report on the tender awarded to a French-based technology company, IDEMIA, by the driving licence card account.
FILE: Twitter/Fikile Mbalula
JOHANNESBURG - The Auditor-General (AG) says officials from the Department of Transport inspected the wrong machine before signing-off on an almost half a billion rand tender for a device to print driver licences.
On Wednesday, the AG's office released its interim report on the tender awarded to a French-based technology company, IDEMIA, by the driving licence card account.
Driving Licence Card Account (DLCA) is an entity of the Department of Transport.
The AG said the DLCA flouted numerous procurement processes in the awarding of the 486 million rand tender to IDEMIA.
READ: Transport Dept was concerned whether French company IDEMIA would protect SAns personal data
The AG's report said during site visits, DLCA officials did not inspect the IDEMIA mx8100 machine, which was the one proposed by the company to print the driver's licences.
The AG said officials inspected an “unrelated” machine and did not provide an adequate answer for why they did this.
For this and other reasons, the AG said the procurement process was irregular.
While the transport department has not paid any money to IDEMIA, it’s now a high court order to set aside the tender.