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Top government tender awards in February

Kimberly Guest
By Kimberly Guest, ITWeb contributor
Johannesburg, 11 Mar 2021

Government procurement underwent some upheaval during February as the Government Printing Works ran into “challenges” with its eGazette publishing system at the beginning of the month. This resulted in the National Tender Bulletin going unpublished, with little insight given into when the public and private sectors may expect its return.


This has had a particular impact on national and provincial government which are required to publish tenders with an expected value of over R500 000 in the National Tender Bulletin to enable equitable access to these contracts and ensure government reaps the rewards of a competitive bidding process.

While the official gazette services are down, organisations lower down in the hierarchy have turned to National Treasury's eTender portal to publicise their tenders. National and provincial departments are also using the website to post announcements of cancelled and awarded tenders.

Costs unknown

While guidelines for government's online tender portal are less stringent, the principle of transparency should surely still prevail. Nevertheless, the following organisations have opted not to disclose the value of their awarded tenders.

First up is the Local Government Education and Training Authority which has awarded a contract to Vox Telecommunications to provide wide area network services; inclusive of a secure, cost-effective and highly available multiprotocol label switching network and internet services.

The City of Cape Town follows with its tender for the supply and support of a telecommunications infrastructure management system awarded to XON Systems.

The Financial and Fiscal Commission has surprisingly also decided to keep costs under cover when it comes to the three year ICT services contract awarded to Afrocentric IP.

National departments have also followed the trend with the Department of Employment and Labour opting not to disclose the value of its agreement with Tech Mahindra South Africa for the cloud hosting of SAP S4HANA roadmap landscape.

The same applies to the Department of Home Affairs with its contract for the provision of a learner and learner management system as well as a platform for virtual classroom for a period of 36 months. This tender was awarded to Media Works.

1. Department of Public Works – R25 million

Winner: TT HR Advisory Services

The national department has awarded a tender valued at just under R25 million to TT HR Advisory Services. The contract will see the company supplying and implementing a data backup and recovery solution with maintenance and support for a period of 36 months.

In its tender documentation the department explained that its current system had reached end-of-life, requiring it to find an original equipment manufacturer to provide a replacement.

The system must be a turnkey solution consisting of both hardware and software. It must also be implemented on premise as the department “does not have a cloud strategy at this stage”. The service is required for its head office in Gauteng as well as its regional offices located in all the provinces. It should also be scalable to include other sites that may be included in the future.

2. Agricultural Sector Education and Training Authority – R14.5 million

Winner: Phuthumani IT Solution

AgriSETA has selected Phuthumani IT Solution to supply it with a supplying, installing, configuring, deploying, licensing, supporting, project managing and maintaining a commercially available enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. The contract allows for the authority to extend for a further two years should it wish.

The authority currently makes use of a service provider-hosted system made up of Microsoft’s AX Dynamics accessible through remote desktop protocol for finance unit functions; and hosted SAGE 300 People System accessible through a web portal for its HR unit functions.

“The organisation has crafted a technology roadmap that would see AgriSETA centralising all its core business systems as well as support systems. This centralisation and amalgamation of systems, has resulted in the organisation’s technology decision to consolidate on a singular suite of software systems,” it said.

The organisation's term of reference made note that it should be viable for small to medium enterprises and able to integrate to the current HR system or fully migrate from the current HR system in full over a period of thirty-six (36) months. Additionally, it required bidders to reflect on their capability to interface the proposed system with other technologies, such as SQL databases for existing systems; and/or any other databases, such as PostgreSQL for future systems that AgriSETA may deploy within its environment.

The authority has also specified that the solution should include a hosting service from within South Africa's borders that ensures compliance with all data processing regulations. This service should also be seamlessly transferable onto AgriSETA hosted environment, in the event that the authority acquires a hosted private cloud platform in the future.

3. Independent Communications Authority of South Africa – R7.5 million

Winner: Nera Consortium

Nera Consortium beat out Sage Informatics' R2 million bid to provide the regulator with consultancy services of the execution and implementation of the auction of the radio frequency spectrum on the following International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) bands IMT 700, IMT 800, IMT 2600, IMT 3500.

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) says it decided to pursue a market-based approach to ensure efficient spectrum management. “The market-based licence approach includes the use of an auction process for the licensing of the spectrum in instances where demand exceeds supply through the issuing of an Invitation to Apply (ITA).”

The project will be implemented in three stages.

In the qualification stage, the consortium will assist the regulator in administering and managing the qualification stage as per the ITA; as well as assist in the evaluation and analysing of the applications and responses.

In the auction stage, Nera will assist Icasa with the development of the auction rules and all measures deemed necessary to ensure the successful running of the auction. This will include the publication of these in the Government Gazette, prior to receipt of applications; determine, identify and manage the prohibited practices in accordance with the applicable laws and international best practices; provide and run the relevant auction tool using the auction model prescribed in the ITA; and perform a mock auction (including training) in preparation for the auction process.

In the final stage the consortium will assist the authority with issuance of the radio frequency spectrum licences to the winning bidders together with the finalisation of the spectrum obligations.

4. National Research Foundation – R4 million

Winner: Datacentrix

Datacentrix has secured a contract with the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) to design, supply, configure and install a next generation enterprise firewall solution, including hardware, training, licensing and support for a period of five years.

The company beat out six other bids from the likes of Altech Card Solutions, MTN and Xon Systems.

The solution will include unified threat management, as well as licensing for its sites in Cape Town, Losberg, Johannesburg, Carnarvon, Klerefontein, and the Centre for High Performance Computing in Rosebank, Cape Town where its equipment is hosted.

The NGFW solution will replace the existing SARAO Check Point firewalls which have reached their end of life and will no longer be supported.

In its tender document, SARAO specified that the solution should be supplied with a compatible security analytics and log management component and centralised firewall management component, as well as an authentication component to integrate the NGFW with the SARAO identity management system. The NGFW will be setup in an active/passive high availability (HA) mode in two sites, with 4 non-HA smaller appliances in the remaining four sites. Should the active unit go down on the HA setup, the other will immediately become the active firewall. The units will control traffic to and from the internal network, other site offices and the internet.

5. Public Service Education and Training Authority – R3 million

Winner: Nine IT Systems

The Public Service Education and Training Authority (PSETA) has selected Nine IT Systems for the procurement and implementation of ICT and security infrastructure at its new premises in Hillcrest Office Park in Lynnwood.

The authority explained that a need had been identified for IT infrastructure to ensure connectivity in the building and that officials are provided with the necessary technology tools that will make them work optimally. There is also a need to procure additional security measures for the safety of the personnel and all the PSETA’s assets, it added.

The IT infrastructure scope of work includes:

  • Install network cabling, patch panels, label and test cabling on the identified floors;
  • Installation and configuration of wireless network;
  • Implementation of biometric access control with a combination of non-touch access on different areas of the floor;
  • Implementation of server room access control and monitoring system;
  • Implementation of environmental controls in the data centre such as BMS requirements;
  • Two new SAN switches procured, installed and configured together with the existing EMC storage; and
  • Raised floor for server room.

The security scope of work entails:

  • Supply and installation of CCTV system which will cover the building interior, as well as all staff access areas;
  • Supply and installation of an access control system which must be computerised with full reporting capabilities to retrieve data when required;
  • Supply of a public address system to be installed in the server with speaker on both wings of each floor; and
  • Maintenance and support of all work done for a period of 36 months.


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