Global consulting firm Accenture has secured a controversial tender to develop a bespoke financial management system that will be rolled out across national and provincial government.
The software deal forms part of National Treasury's integrated financial management system (IFMS), which is being run as a joint initiative including the Department of Public Service and Administration and the State IT Agency (SITA).
Approved by Cabinet in 2005, IFMS intends to replace the numerous disparate, inadequate and/or outdated systems currently employed by the public sector. In its final state, the system is expected to fulfil government's supply chain management, financial management, HR management and business intelligence requirements.
The core financial management system, now assigned to Accenture, was advertised by SITA in August last year in a four-part tender, which included the inventory management and payroll modules, as well as the data exchange system. Although SITA told potential bidders it intended to award at least one of the modules during December 2011, this is the first of the four modules to be officially announced in the Government Gazette.
Courting controversy
The tender is no stranger to delays, as the submission deadline has been extended several times in the face of a flood of queries from industry players. Despite the pages of responses published on SITA's Web site, the tender failed to shrug off industry opinion that the specifications were questionable at best, impossible to deliver at worst.
The primary concern centred on the requirement that the software solutions be developed from scratch, precluding customised off-the-shelf or open source solutions from being considered.
The decision to develop bespoke software, rather than customise existing solutions, stems back to planning minister Trevor Manuel's leadership of government's finance portfolio. In the conceptualisation phase of IFMS, Manuel charged the team with finding a way to leverage the multibillion-rand project to stimulate the local software development industry.
The IFMS tender, however, troubled the sector, as the timeframes are short, allowing only nine months to develop the solution and ready it for testing.
It is here that Accenture may have a chance at beating the clock. Over the last 12 years, the organisation has developed, supplied, enhanced and maintained the financial management solution currently operating in many government departments: BAS (Basic Accounting System).
A competitor, who wishes to remain anonymous, explains: “Accenture had a definite advantage going into this tender. They've done all the work, have all the templates and are familiar with the requirements. Essentially, they need to rewrite the current system into the new code specified by SITA and integrate it onto the IFMS platform. A lot less work than would've been required from a new company and, if they factored this head start into their pricing, I imagine their bid would have been impossible to undercut.”
SITA has not disclosed the value of the contract with Accenture and has not responded to numerous calls for comment. SITA's tender conditions prohibit Accenture from commenting.
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