The Pretoria high court has found the appointment of a preferred bidder for the R898m driving licence card tender was irregular, invalid, unlawful and unenforceable.
On Tuesday the court set aside the appointment of French-owned Idemia Identity and Security South Africa as the preferred bidder for the tender for the production of new driving licence cards, a decision welcomed by transport minister Barbara Creecy and deputy minister Mkhuleko Hlengwa.
The department applied to the court for a declaratory order setting aside the tender on the basis of the findings of the auditor-general that there were irregularities in the tender process.
The auditor-general found there was non-compliance with procurement processes, including transgressions of supply chain management prescripts laid down in the Public Finance Management Act, National Treasury regulations and the Driving Licence Card Account (DLCA) policies.
There was also a misalignment between the bid specifications and the assessments used by the bid evaluation committee. The auditor-general found that the pricing used by the DLCA was outdated and its budget analysis was inadequate and concluded that the tender process was not conducted in an open, transparent and fair manner.
Idemia claimed it had secured the tender legitimately.
The court ordered the department to re-advertise the tender within 30 days.
“Pending the appointment of a successful service provider under the re-advertised tender, the department has also been allowed by the court to outsource the services of printing and issuing driving licence [cards] to the department of home affairs,” the transport department said.
It noted that from December 9, the DLCA agency had cleared the backlog of driving licence cards that were outstanding for printing after the breakdown of the printing machine from February to May 2025. Between May and December 2, 239,456 driving licence cards were printed by the DLCA.
“The State Security Agency has approved the prototype driving licence card designed by the government printing works (GPW).
“The establishment of the network connection between the Road Traffic Management Corporation and GPW was successfully tested. This will allow the transfer of data/files required by GPW to print the driving licence cards. A cabinet process will soon be undertaken to seek cabinet approval of the prototype card design,” the department said.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.