Report on investigation into driving licence machine tender won’t be kept under wraps

Minister of Transport Barbara Creecy has received the final report from the Auditor-General (AG) on the investigation into alleged serious irregularities about the procurement process for the provision of a new machine for the production of the planned new driving licence card.

Creecy confirmed to Moneyweb last week that she received the final report from the AG the previous week and will at least publicly release the executive summary of the AG’s report, but is currently still studying it.

This follows Creecy instructing the AG in September 2024 to expedite and widen the audit scope for the new driving licence card procurement process after new evidence emerged of alleged serious irregularities in the decision to make Idemia the preferred bidder for the supply of the new driving licence card production machine.

ALSO READ: Transparency concerns arise over new driving licence card machine tender

‘Big red flags’

Creecy’s action followed the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) providing her with new evidence of alleged serious irregularities in the decision to make Idemia the preferred bidder.

The budget for the purchase of the machine was R468 million and there conflicting information surfaced about the value of Idemia’s bid, with it either being R762 million or R898 million.

Outa said at the time that its exposure of ‘big red flags’ about the tender had resulted in other parties coming forward with further evidence of manipulation and irregularities around the tender, which it passed onto the Minister.

Creecy said last week that she met the AG in early December 2024 and they presented the report to her.

“At that point in time, the DLCA [Driving Licence Card Account] entity also had the preliminary report. They requested to meet with them [the AG] on the preliminary report.

“Those meetings took place and the final report, as per the view of the AG, I got it last week,” she said.

Creecy said she will comment on the AG’s report “when I’m ready”.

“I have undertaken that I will release at least the executive summary of that report from the AG in public and, obviously I will also need to be in a position when I release it to say that the recommendation is 1, 2, 3. I’m doing the following,” she said.

ALSO READ: Creecy to expedite procurement of new driving licence card printing equipment

Allegations of rigging and manipulation 

Outa CEO Wayne Duvenage said they are pleased the minister tasked the AG to look into the allegations of tender rigging and manipulation on the driving licence card machine tender.

Duvenage said Outa is also pleased that the AG’s office provided the minister and the DLCA with a preliminary report on its findings and recommendations, as well as the fact that due process has been followed with gathering of DLCA’s input and a final report has now been issued to the minister.

He said it has been almost five months since the awarding of the tender to Idemia was made and the red-flags raised by Outa about the irregularities it uncovered with whistleblower input.

“While we believe this process has taken too long, it has been thorough and we have had the holiday break in-between,” Duvenage said.

“We are here now, and trust the minister will apply her mind and make a decision on the way forward as soon as possible, and in doing so, will provide feedback as to the why and how she will be acting on the recommendations in the AG’s report.

“All we can really do now is wait for the minister’s announcement, whereafter we will announce our reactions to the decision.”

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Tender process ‘not within our mandate’ — AG

AG spokesperson Africa Boso confirmed to Moneyweb early last month that the AG did receive a request from Creecy to investigate allegations of manipulation of a DLCA tender process.

However, Boso said that after careful consideration of the request, the AG determined that the concern raised by Creecy related to the tender process of the driving licence machine “does fall within our annual audit mandate”.

“As such, these matters were therefore included as part of the 2024-25 regularity audit that has already commenced.

“To this effect, a report on the matter has been sent to the Minister on 29 November 2024, he said.

The Department of Transport last year declined a request from Moneyweb for a copy of this report by the AG, stressing it was an interim report.

Duvenage said last year that the organisation would hold off on applying for an urgent high court interdict to stop the contract from being signed until it is clear the contract will not be cancelled.

Duvenage said Outa also wants an investigation to be launched into the conduct of the DLCA official involved in evaluating and adjudicating the tender.

“We need an investigation at the highest level and urgently before the documentation or cover-up starts and to have these guys charged,” he said.

Duvenage added at the time that among the documents Outa obtained and supplied to Creecy, were two bid evaluation committee reports for submission to the bid adjudication committee – both dated 5 March 2024, but with different bid values for Idemia’s bid – which “points to the high probability of gross tender manipulation”.

He said Outa has copies of correspondence showing that on 4 April 2024 the bid adjudication committee chair wrote to the DLCA acting CFO, informing him that the committee had discussed concerns on 28 March 2024 that its budget of R468 million was insufficient and the Idemia bid was R762 million while another bid evaluation committee report shows the Idemia bid as being R898 million.

ALSO READ: Transport dept says ‘on track’ to deliver new driving licence card equipment

Tampering with pricing envelopes

Duvenage said Outa had also received information that there was tampering with the pricing envelopes in the bids submitted for the second cancelled tender.

He said this was discovered by bidders who were “disqualified” in the technical evaluation process, before pricing was evaluated by the bid evaluation committee, which required that the pricing bid envelopes should have remained sealed.

Duvenage said these bidders discovered when they requested the return of their “unsuccessful” tender documents from the DLCA that their sealed “pricing envelope” had been tampered with.

“This implies the DLCA had broken the rules and opened this document, revealing the tender price to people inside (and possibly outside) the DLCA.

“This raises the possibility of competing bidders being alerted to their competitor’s prices,” he said.

Duvenage said Outa received further information that at least one bidder was wrongly marked down on aspects of the technical evaluation and this bidder provided a substantially lower price than Idemia and would most likely have been the successful bidder.

This article was republished from Moneyweb. Read the original here.