The tender process for the provision of technology for the World Summit on Sustainable Development continues to flounder as organisers say they are looking for sponsors to provide them with "budget relief" and tenderers claim they have been kept in the dark while organisers run out of time.
The summit, which will be held in Johannesburg at the end of August, is expected to attract more than 65 000 participants to the city and has already resulted in massive infrastructure upgrades throughout the city. To date, only the software portion of the technology needs of the summit have been finalised, with both the hardware and network tenders still outstanding.
Mark Alexander, IT executive at the Johannesburg World Summit Company, says the firm is now looking at signing up a number of sponsors for the hardware and network needs. By signing up sponsors instead of awarding the tenders, the organisers will "save a huge amount of money," says Alexander.
The tender process is currently on ice, and will only be resumed if sponsors are not signed up in the next week. "We will conclude this process by the end of May. We have two potential companies to sponsor the hardware," says Alexander.
Networking also has two potential sponsors, and although Alexander won`t name them, he says they are different to the hardware sponsors. "We have asked the tenderers to extend the process until the end of May and they have all agreed."
However, consortium sources involved in the tender process say they rarely receive updates, but are unwilling to push the organisers for more information for fear of jeopardising their bids. Consortium sources also say the process has taken unnecessarily long and they have concerns that organisers are leaving little time for roll-out of the infrastructure. Most say the roll-out of the hardware and networking could take between six and eight weeks.
Alexander says the process is "very much in control. We now have a revised project schedule which will see all the technology in place by the middle of July."
The consortiums involved in the bidding process believe that the organisers are short of a lot more money than Alexander admits to, and one source suggests that the shortfall could be as much as R200 million.
Although Alexander denies the organisers are short of money, he says they are hoping sponsors will provide "budget relief". If sponsors are signed up to provide the hardware and networking requirements of the conference, he says, the organisers will save in the region of R60 million. Alexander adds that if the sponsor process fails, "government has the money to cover the cost of providing the infrastructure".
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