ACSA denies wrongdoing in R380 million biometrics tender row

Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) has denied any wrongdoing in awarding a tender for its biometric system to French/South African firm IDEMIA.

ACSA was responding to IOL which earlier reported on a legal challenge by local BEE firm, InfoVerge, which has taken ACSA and IDEMIA to court to halt the contract. InfoVerge claims it was left out by IDEMIA once the tender had been awarded.

However, ACSA says its procurement processes are clear and this dispute is between the two contracted companies and not ACSA.

“A year prior to the publishing of the Request For Proposals, ACSA engaged in industry research to develop specifications. This is a normal and acceptable practice, especially when an organisation intends to procure a system of this magnitude and technical complexity,” ACSA told IOL.

“Having followed a prudent procurement process, the contract to the value of R115-million was awarded to IDEMIA. It required that at least 30% of the contract value be subcontracted to a South African, black-owned Exempted Micro Enterprise (EME) and/or Qualified Small Enterprise (QSE). As such, the winning bidder had a teaming agreement with a local company called InfoVerge as its black-owned partner.

“However, ACSA became aware of an impasse between the two business partner IDEMIA and InfoVerge and engaged both companies with a view to foster an amicable resolution and in the interest of delivering on the contract.

“Despite ACSA’s efforts, the two business partners could not reach an amicable resolution. This resulted in InfoVerge approaching the High Court seeking relief to set aside ACSA’s decision to award the tender.

“It is important to categorically state that the matter is a contractual dispute between InfoVerge and IDEMIA, and there is no allegation of irregularities regarding ACSA’s procurement processes in the current legal proceedings,” ACSA explained in response to IOL.

But, InfoVerge has drawn ACSA into its legal challenge calling on ACSA to halt the contract pending the court outcome.

The biometric system which was rolled out to airports and more recently to King Shaka Airport, has experienced problems in its implementation phase. But, ACSA says, its being resolved and has apologised for the inconvenience.

“We can confirm that the Biometric Movement Control System (BMCS) which was introduced at King Shaka International Airport in the last few weeks, has been experiencing post-implementation challenges, causing long queues in the immigration areas. The Border Managemet Agency technical team is working on improving the situation,” added ACSA.