On February 15, 1999 MarPless Communication Technologies (Pty) Limited as main contractor, together with Unisys, NEC and various black sub-contractors, were awarded an R800m contract for the supply and service of the new Home Affairs National Identification System (HANIS).
MarPless was formed in July 1993 as a joint venture company between Marubeni Corporation from Japan and Plessey South Africa to supply and support the South African markets with telecommunication equipment and systems designed and manufactured both locally and internationally.
Marubeni, one of the world's leading general trading companies with a gross trading profit of $4-billion hold 51% of the equity in MarPless. Plessey who have subsequently been bought by Dimension Data and Wordwide African Investment Holding hold the remaining 49% on a 49:51 shareholding.
The Home Affairs contract calls for the daily production of 30 000 identity cards. The sub-contractors, NEC, the leading supplier of large AFIS solutions will supply the required hardware and Unisys will undertake primary responsibility for the system integration and system design (including database design). The cards will be produced by Polaroid who is the world's largest producer of ID cards.
MarPless, together with Marubeni, Worldwide, Dimension Data and other specialist sub-contractors are ideally positioned to undertake large turnkey projects such as HANIS, combining the skill, products and expertise of industry leaders from the United States, Japan and South Africa.
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