SITA cans tender

The State IT Agency (SITA) has cancelled a tender after protests by small companies that they were being sidelined in favour of larger companies.

Sonwabo Mdwaba, CEO of Sive Communication, alleges that the tender - to provide cabling - is detrimental to small companies and seeks to alienate them from the bidding process.

The tender - number 385/2009 - was for companies to provide advisory service, planning, design, supply, installation, commissioning, project management and maintenance of network cabling and associated services to SITA for three years.

Submissions for the tender were due to close on Friday. However, the Black IT Forum and other concerned businesses have raised a series of complaints with SITA via e-mail.

A barrage of e-mails went back and forth between interested parties and SITA during the course of this week. The parties insisted the tender be withdrawn, while the agency said the tender did not require modifications.

However, after several e-mails had been sent - copies of which are in ITWeb's possession - SITA backed down and withdrew the tender. The interested parties had also threatened to raise the issue with the media.

Among the complaints is that the requirement to use certain technologies is beyond the reach of small and medium companies. Another issue is that the barriers to acquiring information, pricing, training and, subsequently, accreditation in SITA's required technologies are too high.

Mdwaba says these concerns have been ignored. “Does this mean that SITA is ignoring the concerns of the industry?”

He questions whether there are individuals that SITA is trying to satisfy at the expense of excluding all the black, small and medium companies. “If you go ahead with the tender the way it is structured, it will be a great injustice to the development of black SMEs,” he writes in an e-mail to SITA.

In response, Johnson Dyodo, from SITA's Procurement Services, writes: “SITA has published an open tender for all prospective suppliers to respond to. It is hereby confirmed that there is absolutely no intention on the side of SITA, directly or indirectly, to disadvantage black SMEs.”

Dyodo adds that the agency has changed the tender specifications, and published these changes on its Web site. “SITA believes that the tender will enable everyone to respond, including the SMEs.”

But, Mdwaba says, while the tender was withdrawn after initially being published in August, it was republished a week later without the interested companies being offered a chance to respond.

Mdwaba tells ITWeb that cabling is an important industry for small companies, as it provides an entry point into the ICT sector. He explains that it costs much less to train someone in this field, and a company can get up and running without the need for start-up capital.

However, the tender has since been cancelled, and Dyodo writes in his e-mail informing the interested parties of this: “After consultation with SITA top management, a decision was taken to withdraw RFB 385/2009. The notice will be posted on the SITA Web site in the course of today.”

SITA's communications department did not respond to requests for comment.