The Gauteng government has been accused of using the cover of the coronavirus to rush through a R30 million contract without proper tender processes. The matter has now landed on the desk of the president after a whistle-blower wrote a letter of complaint
The R30 million contract to provide Gauteng’s e-government department with IT services, including cybersecurity, was concluded within 24 hours.
Enraged technology companies which lost out to In2IT have also lodged complaints with Ndabeni-Abrahams, saying the 24-hour window period suggests that the award may have been predetermined. Mgcina added: “Closing date and time for submission of quotation: March 26 2020 at 10:00. Hope all is in order.”
Ninow-Cohen told Ndabeni-Abrahams that, given “the enormity of this quote ... no party would be able to adequately meet this requirement, especially without prior information”. “It takes days or weeks to secure special government pricing,” explained the service provider. “That pricing is often considerably lower than what would be made available to the private sector. Without access to that pricing, the only response that can be cost-effective or competitive is one that was prepared in advance. It also takes a while to get updated letters of reference from other clients. This cannot be done in a single evening.
In2IT, which was on Tshwane’s panel, agreed to participate, but that process was scuppered by the metro being placed under administration.The post office responded by saying the service that In2IT was providing was very different from that which was sought by Gauteng’s e-government department. Then, on the evening of Wednesday March 25, the letter to potential bidders went out. The tender was to close at 10am the following morning, giving bidders just two working hours to submit.A letter from Max Ludwig, chief director of ICT Infrastructure in Gauteng’s e-government department, was sent to senior staff, informing them that “the new service provider is ready to start with the handover as from tomorrow morning. Please get your team to be on standby for this process.
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