The Pretoria High Court has ruled in favour of the Department of Transport (DoT) outsourcing the printing and issuing of driving licences to the Government Printing Works (GPW) in the interim.
This comes after the setting aside of a controversial tender for a new driving licence card machine.
A judgment delivered by Acting Judge M Smit declared the R898-million tender awarded to Idemia South Africa invalid, irregular, unlawful and unenforceable.
Tender to be readvertised
The court ordered the DoT to readvertise the tender within 30 days for the provision, installation and maintenance of equipment and infrastructure needed to personalise smart driving licence cards.
Pending the appointment of a new service provider, the court ruled that the DoT may outsource the printing and issuing of licences to the Department of Home Affairs, under which the GPW operates.
The GPW is responsible for security printing of key state documents, including passports, identity documents and birth certificates.
The matter reached court after Transport Minister Barbara Creecy instructed the department to seek legal clarity on how to proceed, following findings by the Auditor-General that the tender process was irregular.
Creecy had asked for the investigation after the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) presented evidence of alleged serious flaws in the award process.
Irregular tender double the project budget
The tender was awarded by the Driving Licence Card Account (DLCA) to Idemia Identity and Security South Africa, a subsidiary of French multinational Idemia, despite the DLCA’s budget for the project being R486-million.
Creecy and Deputy Minister Mkhuleko Hlengwa welcomed the court’s decision. They said it affirmed the department’s commitment to transparency and lawful procurement.
In an update on interim measures, the DoT said the State Security Agency has approved a GPW-designed prototype driving licence card.
Technical testing between the Road Traffic Management Corporation and the GPW has been completed. And this enables secure data transfers for card production.
Outa chief executive Wayne Duvenage welcomed the ruling. But he criticised delays in resolving the tender, which he said had been stalled for nearly seven years. He questioned whether any officials involved in the irregular award had been held accountable. And he called for Idemia to be blocklisted from government tenders.
READ MORE:Â Driving Licence Card Machine tender found to be irregular
