SIYABONGA SITHOLE
Johannesburg - Minister of Home Affairs, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi has refuted claims made by the DA in which it alleges that the department wasted over R450 million in a failed automated identification project.
The minister singled out member of Parliament and portfolio committee on home affairs, Angel Khanyile for repeating a lie from the media that the department had wasted R450 million through the Automated Biometric Identification System (Abis) which is required to improve security of South Africans against identity fraud currently experienced due to the outdated two-step biometric system, Home Affairs National Identification System (Hanis).
Motsoaledi says Khanyile knows very well how the contract was managed, adding that the department had called for an improved identification system over five years ago, resulting in the contract.
"Ms Khanyile knows very well that some five years ago, the department of home affairs wished to move from Hanis to Automated Biometric Identification System (Abis) which has five biometrics, including facial iris recognition," the minister said.
Motsoaledi said as things stand, all South Africans are on Hanis which has easily corruptible identification features, adding that the department did not issue out the tender for the contract as this was done through the State Information Technology Agency (Sita).
"By being a member of the portfolio committee on home affairs, Ms Khanyile is aware that when the auditor general audited Sita, he picked up the irregularities in the contract issued to EOH to deliver Abis," the minister said.
The minister added that his department was ordered by the auditor general to conduct a forensic investigation into the EOH contract which was conducted by a company called Nexia SAB&T and that following this investigation, EOH withdrew its participation in the contract.
"On May 25, 2021, the Nexia SAB&T team did the investigation and presented their findings directly to the portfolio committee on home affairs and Ms Khanyile was part of the meeting.
"There is a big claim, or should I say, a lie that has been printed in the media that the department has wasted R450 million, Ms Khanyile is gladly rehashing this lie," he added.
Motsoaledi said the contract for the Abis did not come to R450 million as suggested by media reports, but only came to R280 million after EOH had done some work and purchased software to the value of R280 million.
"At the time they pulled out of Abis project, they had purchased hardware worth R113 million, software worth R110 million and delivered services worth R56 million which totals, R280 million,“ he said.
In a statement this weekend Khanyile called on the minister to account for the R300 million which the department had blown in dodgy tenders.
"In 2017, the DHA paid a company, EOH Holdings almost R300 million to upgrade Hanis to the automated system, a project that would benefit both DHA and SAPS. However, the R300 million has now seemingly gone down the drain. The DHA then paid an additional R150 million to another company, Idemia to complete the project. Bizarrely though, Idemia was the original sub-contranctor to EOH Holdings, who never finished the project,"Khanyile alleged.
Khanyile added that investigations suggest that government officials had allegedly engineered this unlawful contract in order to award the tender to EOH, which is politically connected.