Conduent plans to continue to pursue its appeal rights after the New Jersey Turnpike Authority (NJTA) decided to forge ahead with awarding stewardship of EZ-Pass to a company with alleged ties to the Chinese government.
“We are disappointed with the NJTA’s decision but are not surprised given the one-sided nature of the NJTA protest process. Their decision glosses over the $250 million price difference and ignores NJTA’s failure to disclose that price differential to the NJTA Board of Commissioners,” explained Conduent in a statement supplied to Save Jersey. “In addition, NJTA failed to give the Board the information they needed to make an informed decision. NJTA also dismisses the national security implications of the foreign government ownership of TransCore and the China connection. NJTA’s decision is filled with factual errors, misunderstandings, and misleading statements, including an incorrect estimate of the costs associated with Conduent’s staffing plan. We plan to appeal the decision, and our appeal will address all factual inaccuracies and misleading claims.”
Conduent held the contract at issue for two decades.
Back in September 2024, the NJTA awarded a $1.73 billion contract to TransCore despite Newark-based Conduent Inc. bidding lower at $1.479 billion.
Concerns over TransCore revolve around owner ST Engineering’s parent company – Temasek Holdings – which is owned by Singapore and connected to Beijing. Critics fret that EZ-Pass data could now land in the lap of the Chinese.
The dispute between Transcore and Conduent is heating up at a time when U.S. tensions with China are reaching an all-time high. On Thursday night, a report crossed the wires that China may even be assisting Houthi rebels target American warships and international craft.
“I don’t really understand why this hasn’t gotten a lot, frankly, a lot more attention,” former U.S. Senator Robert Torricelli (D-NJ), a consultant for Conduent, told FOX Business. “I would rather the Chinese knew what I was watching on TikTok than have the Chinese monitoring my car going up and down the New Jersey Turnpike. I don’t really understand why people aren’t more upset about it.”
