The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) has sounded the alarm regarding the allocation of South Africa’s new Driver’s Licence Card Account (DLCA), which allegedly showed several discrepancies during the tender process.
Outa believes that these areas of concern are enough to nullify the decision to award the DLCA to Idemia, which would further delay the rollout of the country’s new cards should this outcome take place.
Not standard procedure
The Department of Transport (DoT) first announced on 1 September 2024 that it had selected the French company Idemia Identity and Security to produce South Africa’s new driver’s licence cards, but this decision was met with immediate backlash from groups like Outa and the Automobile Association.
The public outcry from industry stakeholders prompted a response from Transport Minister Barbary Creecy, who announced that the Auditor-General had been instructed to expedite and widen the scope of its audit into the licence card tender award.
The findings of this audit have yet to be published, but Outa CEO Wayne Duvanage recently stated that the Auditor-General report should be released by mid-January.
“The minister is going to look at the findings, and she has indicated that the department should have an answer to the way forward by the middle of January,” he said in an interview on Cape Talk.
Outa has not been idly waiting for the audit to be published, however, as it has been gathering evidence alleging that the tender process was manipulated to secure a specific outcome.
When the government issues a tender for a new project, companies are required to undergo three evaluations before they can be eligible for the role.
The first step checks that the applicant can adhere to administrative procedures, such as having the correct tax clearance, competency, and management structure.
If a bidder passes this stage, it is then subjected to a technical evaluation that awards points based on whether the business is deemed capable of the contract it is applying for.
The evaluation is scored out of 30 points, and a company needs at least 24 points to be eligible for the tender.
Duvenage claimed that there were already discrepancies at this stage of the DLCA process, as several bidders were turned down despite meeting the technical requirements to be considered.
The final step of the evaluation then sees the various bidders submit their cost proposals, which are meant to be concealed before this point.
However, Outa stated that several applicants came forward with evidence that their pricing documents had been opened and tampered with, indicating that the organizers were manipulating the submissions to ensure that a specific bidder was ultimately selected.
“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,” said Duvanage.
In addition, the process also deviated from the National Treasury’s guidelines with three price validity period extensions, which tell the applicant how long their bid must remain valid, helping them to set their bids accordingly.
This divergence from the typical procedure is what prompted the initial backlash from civil action groups, leading to the Transport Minister’s decision to expedite the Auditor-General’s investigations.
The result of these actions is that, while at least 25 companies applied for the initial DLCA tender, only five submitted bids by the time the final application was opened.
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