Johannesburg – Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) has suspended Chief Information Officer Mthokozisi Mncwabe for “wrongdoing” regarding its biometric and digital identity technology project.
In a statement late Thursday, (8 August 2024), ACSA said it has “placed the Chief Information Officer on precautionary suspension effective today”.
Initially, on Saturday, (3 August 2024), ACSA issued a statement indicating that there were no allegations of irregularities regarding ACSA’s procurement processes in the current legal proceedings before the High Court.
However, after probing the matter further, ACSA said it had found indications of possible anomalies.
“We have since undertaken a preliminary investigation and have now found that there is prima facie evidence of wrongdoing in relation to the biometric and digital identity technology project,” ACSA said Thursday.
“It is on this basis that the Chief Information Officer has been placed on a precautionary suspension.
“‘The precautionary suspension is to allow ACSA to conduct further investigation and report back to the public on our findings.”
In May 2022, ACSA embarked on a procurement process for the Automated Border Control (ABC) project, e-Gates and single token for 60 months.
The process culminated in the appointment of a French multinational technology company, IDEMIA, and a contract to the value of R115 million was concluded.
The contract required that at least 30% of the 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 EME/QSE partner (B-BBEE partner) for purposes of complying with EME/QSE requirements in the RFP,” explained ACSA.
“However, ACSA became aware of an impasse between the two business partners (IDEMIA and InfoVerge) and engaged both companies with a view to foster an amicable resolution in the interest of delivering on the contract.
“ACSA was satisfied that the two business partners would work together in the delivery of the required services.
“Despite ACSA’s efforts, the two business partners could not reach an amicable resolution.”
This resulted in InfoVerge approaching the High Court Gauteng Local Division (High Court), seeking relief to set aside ACSA’s decision to award the tender for providing the Automated Border Control project to IDEMIA.
In the court papers, ACSA was cited as a second respondent.
ACSA said it was considering its options regarding the contract for the provision of the ABC project, e-Gates, and single token that has been entered into with IDEMIA.
