Transport department seeks declaratory order after R800 million driving licence machine tender was red flagged by AGSA

Staff reporter

Leribe – The Department of Transport will approach North Gauteng high court in an effort to seek a declaratory order against a tender the department awarded.

This followed Auditor General’s report that found all bids submitted exceeded the R486,385 million budget set by thE DLCA, indicating inadequate market analysis and budgeting.

It was Barbara Greecy, Minister of Transport who asked AGSA to investigate the tender in September 2024.

The AGSA found:

1. identified instances of non-compliance with the required procurement processes. The non-compliances emanated from transgressions of Supply Chain Management prescripts (Public Finance Management Act (PFMA), Treasury Regulations and Driving License Card Account (DLCA) SCM policies, rendering the procurement process irregular.
2. The identified instances of non-compliance were due to;

2.1. The DLCA’s budget analysis, as part of the demand management process, being inadequate.

2.2. Bids not being evaluated according to the evaluation criteria as per the bid specifications.

2.3. Inconsistent application of scoring during the bid evaluation process.

3. that the bid evaluation committee (BEC) deviated from assessing the bids using the exact criteria set out in the bid specifications when evaluating documents provided by bidders. The BEC members had to use their judgment and make executive decisions on how to assess the bids due to ambiguous bid specifications, which did not clearly address the DLCA requirements. This ambiguity led to discrepancies identified by the AGSA, resulting in an unfair and non-transparent procurement process.

When IDEMIA, the winners were awarded, the cost was R898million, a 100% increase from the budgeted cost pre covid-19.

Greecy will ask the court for declaratory order as any continuation with IDEMIA will be irregular.

Greecy conceded when positions are occupied by acting employees, it breeds this level of incompetence.

This is a developing story.

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