New beginning for GautengOnline

By Damaria Senne, ITWeb senior journalist

Johannesburg, 20 Jun 2006

Government`s multimillion-rand GautengOnline project is being overhauled. The Gauteng Department of Education has confirmed it will issue a new tender for the initiative next month.

The project, which was launched in 2001, began roll-out in 2003, but has been plagued by accusations of bungling and mishandling, with fingers pointed at project management leaders and broadband and Internet access provider Sentech.

A subcontractor alleged at the end of last year that Sentech had not fulfilled its obligations in supplying the necessary satellite bandwidth and that it did not follow accepted black economic empowerment guidelines of paying a subcontractor within 15 days of invoice.

At the time, Sentech strongly denied these allegations, describing them as "sensationalist and inaccurate".

Stumbling block

Ineffective project management is also believed to be one of the major stumbling blocks in the implementation of the project.

Initially budgeted at R500 million, the GautengOnline initiative comprised the establishment of 25 PC laboratories, which included a printer, a DVD/CD/VHS player, a television set and Internet connectivity, at 2 000 schools. To date, roll-out has only been completed at 1 200 schools.

"One of the problems was if technicians arrived at a school to install the computer network and found the infrastructure of the building was not ready, they would leave, as the ICT company was not responsible for it," says GautengOnline project manager Dick Raynor.

As a result, the Gauteng Department of Education has indicated the project will have to be restructured, and is in the process of drawing up tender documents.

New consortium

Raynor emphasises the importance of building project management capacity into a new consortium that would run the project.

"We are looking for a consortium of companies that will do the infrastructure, technical roll-out of the lab and project manage the whole process."

He explains the revamped project will have to encompass a 25% increase in the number of schools in the Gauteng province, as the department recently inherited 430 schools when new communities were incorporated into the province.

Raynor would not disclose the value of the revamped tender, as this figure was due to form part of this morning`s budget speech by Gauteng education MEC Angie Motshekga.

At this stage, Raynor cannot say whether the contract to provide Internet access to GautengOnline schools will also be reviewed as part of the overhaul.

Initially, Sentech, iBurst and Telkom, which were not part of the main tender process, were requested to present proposals, he says. The contract was awarded to Sentech, which has a year remaining on the deal.