Top year-end ICT tender awards

Government's October race to award a slew of 59 tenders slowed dramatically in November.

This followed finance minister Tito Mboweni's tabling of the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement. Despite Mboweni urging the public sector to rein in spending, procurement officers still had big-ticket items they deemed necessary to acquire.

The last two months of the year saw an assortment of high-value tenders awarded. The top five awards include blended and distance learning, computing hardware, Internet and hosting services, software development and record management services.

The Student Hub secured a three-year contract from Coastal KZN TVET College to provide blended and distance learning. The company provides online courses from South African colleges making use of its “private resources and the latest learning technology, [and] facilitated by our experienced team”.

“Through our partnerships with various colleges, we enable them to be at the forefront of online learning and skills delivery by removing the limitation of a physical campus and increasing the number of students who can enrol,” it says.

The company's learner management system allows colleges to monitor student performance, increasing the value to the college while limiting the cost incurred from having students on campus, it adds.

The NHFC selected Vox Telecommunications to provide Internet connectivity services, a virtual hosting solution, hosted firewall solution, hosted PBX solution and Mimecast solution for its offices located in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth.

The company is also required to be able to ramp up on demand any number of servers required as part of any disaster recovery situation; deploy Microsoft Business Voice or similar; and provide technical skills to setup, configure and deploy infrastructure services for on-demand provisioning of services. In addition, Vox will provide a comprehensive onsite support warranty for a period of five years.

A Pragma and Technolibra joint venture is to develop a next-generation National Integrated Information and Management System (NIIMS). The reason for this, according to the regulator, is that the current NIMS system has several shortfalls, including lack of workflow functionality, integration between modules and an integrated database.

The next-generation NIMS is expected to “assist the RSR to manage its processes using technology to improve service delivery while empowering the entity to have up-to-date and real-time information at its disposal to make informed decisions”.

The project forms part of RSR's aims to capitalise on eight technology trends: hyper-automation, Internet of things, autonomous things, multi-experience, augmented analytics, mobility and virtual ways of working, cyber security and blockchain.

KwaZulu-Natal's Department of Human Settlements has entered into a contract with Nambiti Technologies to procure 300 laptops at a cost of just over R9 million. The department received a total of 108 responses to the request for bids, with values ranging between R19 million and R4 million.

In addition to 300 specified HP 650 G5 laptops, Nambiti will supply equal numbers of compatible docking stations and associated peripherals; compatible 23.8-inch monitor and associated cables and peripherals; standard three-year on-site, next business day warranty, as well as expanded warranties for a further two years; HP three-year next business day on-site hardware support; laptop backpack carry bag; HP comfort grip wireless mouse and keyboard combo or a similar compatible; standard laptop security locks; and setup and imaging with the departmental standard laptop image.

SASSETA selected Data Proof Communications to provide a records management solution for a five-year period. In April 2019, the authority appointed Metrofile to provide a similar solution until March 2020 at a cost of R1 million.

The tender documentation states the company is to provide an electronic records management system to replace that of the existing service provider. The system must allow SASSETA to create, store, scan and record various physical records into electronic media. While the system needs to be secure and confidential,  records must also be retrieved, scanned, indexed and electronically stored in a manner that is “easily and readily accessible”.

The contract encompasses the provision of consultancy services and labour for back scanning and related services; migration of existing records; hosting of electronic records through cloud/internal storage; location, capturing and retrieval strategy for onsite physical storage; and provision of maintenance and support services.