ACSA suspends chief officer over R115m contract

King Phalo Airport

Cape Town — The Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) placed the Chief Information Officer, Mthokozisi Mncwabe, on precautionary suspension last week.

In a statement, ACSA said there were no allegations of irregularities regarding its procurement processes in the legal proceedings before the High Court, which was true based on information it had at the time.

“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. It is on this basis that the Chief Information Officer has been placed on a precautionary suspension,” ACSA spokesperson, Ernest Mulibana, said.

ACSA said the suspension was to allow it more time to conduct further investigations and report back to the public on its findings. It had embarked on a procurement process for the Automated Border Control (ABC) project, e-Gates and single token, in May 2022. The process resulted in appointing a French multinational technology company, IDEMIA, with a contract valued at R115 million.

“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),” he said,

“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,” he continued,

ACSA became aware of an standoff between IDEMIA and InfoVerge and engaged both companies to find a resolution in the interest of respecting the agreed upon contract. It was satisfied the two companies would set aside their differences and work together but it could not come to an agreement.

“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 the provision of Automated Border Control project to IDEMIA,” he said,

ACSA was cited as a second respondent and is currently looking at all options relating to the contract for the provision of the ABC project, e-Gates and single token  that has been entered into with IDEMIA.

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Compiled by Matthew Petersen

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