‘This is an issue that transcends politics,’ state Sen. Joe Pennacchio said.
Lawmakers have raised concerns about the New Jersey Turnpike Authority’s decision to award an 11-year E-ZPass contract to a Singaporean-owned company over its alleged ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
“This is an issue that transcends politics, where we’re truly concerned for the deal and whether or not we can have safeguards to make sure that we were being properly protected,” state Sen. Joe Pennacchio, a Republican from Morris County, told The Epoch Times on Feb. 22.
In September 2024, the Turnpike Authority awarded the E-ZPass customer service operations to Nashville-based TransCore for $1.73 billion. TransCore beat out Conduent, based in Newark, New Jersey, and its more competitive bid of $1.48 billion. TransCore’s parent company, Singapore Technologies Engineering (STE), is owned by Temasek Holdings, which is wholly owned by Singapore’s government.
Earlier this month, Pennacchio wrote a letter to New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy asking him to use his executive power to void the contract. He explained that Fu Chengyu—a former chairman of China’s state-owned oil companies and a high-ranking CCP member with ties to China’s influence network, the United Front Work Department—was a member of Temasek’s board of directors until recently.
“You have a foreign entity with a former member of the CCP who used to be on the board,” Pennacchio said. “So, I mean, that should be red flags.
“So that’s where we’re dependent on our own government to make sure that these deals that are going to happen are properly vetted, and they’ve gone through the proper circles of national defense, of Homeland Security, and … the Treasury Department, making sure that our financial secrets are kept secret, not shared with other people.”
The senator said the E-ZPass system collects personal information such as driver’s license information, credit card numbers, and banking information, and can also track the movements of cargo and people.
Pennacchio questioned whether the deal was properly vetted during the Biden administration. He said he had received a response from Murphy directing him to reach out to the Turnpike Authority, but noted that the port agency had not conducted the vetting.
By Frank Fang and Eva Fu
