Question NW2610 to the Minister of Home Affairs

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28 September 2022 - NW2610

Profile picture: Khanyile, Ms AT

Khanyile, Ms AT to ask the Minister of Home Affairs

(1)With reference to allegations that his department spent R300 million to pay certain companies (names furnished), to upgrade the Home Affairs National Identification System to an automated biometric identification system, but that it was never completed (details furnished), what (a) total amount was paid to the specified companies and (b) portion and percentage of the project had been completed by the specified companies that would justify a payment based on percentage/stage completion; (2) what (a) percentage of the project has been completed and can be continued by another service provider and (b) is the estimated cost to have the project completed; (3) what steps has his department taken to finalise the project so that both the SA Police Service and his department can start to operate effectively? NW3126E

Reply:

(1)(a) To date the Department has paid a sum of R293 754 950-57 to appointed service providers against ABIS Phase 1 milestone delivery:

  • EOH: R280 877 475.75
  • IDEMIA: R12 877 474.82

1(b) Implementation of ABIS Phase 1 is not complete as measured against the requirements within the Master Services Agreement (MSA). The programme is currently at 85% of the Phase 1 deliverable. This includes -

  • 100% development of two dedicated Disaster Recovery Sites and;
  • Procurement of IT equipment and infrastructure needed for development of ABIS architecture, interfaces and systems with payments to EOH comprising R113 383 482.12 for hardware, a further R110 972 282.7 for licensing and software and a sum of R56 521 710.91 against professional service fees.

(2)(a) Phase 1 remains in development, but work-in-progress is advanced and some of the Workstreams are fully delivered, namely:

  • 100% of Infrastructure development in the form of Data Centres and Security Integration is complete and ready for Production.
  • Three (CONLV, ONLV, IJS) of the six Interfaces are complete whilst the outstanding three interfaces (Live Capture, NPR and NIIS are advanced and soon to conclude end-to-end testing.
  • Change Management is complete at 100% whilst training of business users and SAPS officials is ongoing in preparation for use of the system.
  • Latent Search capability at work station level has successfully passed testing, Integration testing at Interface level is undergoing enhancement.
  • Facial recognition capability is enhanced at the Back Office and will soon conclude testing.
  • Data Migration stands at 99.76% complete, however the Department requires 100% of the HANIS database to be migrated to ABIS. This is a prerequisite to ensure complete integrity prior to its deployment into Production, and ensure that every existing client of the DHA will be able to access a service within the ABIS solution
  • By November 2022, it is anticipated that as ABIS moves into a Production environment, the system will become the primary biometric platform of the department, and HANIS will operate as a secondary, back-up. As the ABIS system stabilises, inclusion of new functionality will be introduced. Considering this, it may not be appropriate to appointment another service provider at this late stage of the programme as it will inevitably hold the risk of setting the ABIS Programme further aback.

(2)(b) It is estimated that a budgeted spend of R183 650 240.23 is required for conclusion of the ABIS Programme (all phases)

(3) The Department has meticulously managed its commercial contract with IDEMIA and the service provider is being held to account for its failure to conclude and ensure milestone delivery against the Master Services Agreement. Through this legal process, penalties will be applied for late or non-delivery. The Department has already communicated its intention to leverage such contractual penalties with effect from 1 April 2021.

Operationally, the department, and IDEMIA, have confirmed their commitment to finalise outstanding work and to commence with a phased release of functional ABIS components by end November 2022. This plan will be supported by enhanced ABIS testing within its development environments.

END

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