Red flags raised over R1.2 billion Western Cape IT tender
A R1.2 billion tender awarded earlier this year to offer LAN services to public schools in the Western Cape is at risk, reports the City Press.
The Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT) and the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) are considering going to court to force its withdrawal after the Western Cape Department of Education ignored a recommendation to withdraw the tender by 8 December 2023.
SITA advised the department to do this as an unsuccessful bidder had alleged that there were irregularities with the allocation of the tender.
Sizwe Africa IT, which is chaired by ANC deputy chairperson of chaplaincy Reverend Vukile Mehana, claimed that Blue Networks Consortium submitted two tender documents — one with the lowest numbers, and one with the highest.
Mehana said there were enough reasons to believe the process needed to be stopped or restarted to ensure fairness.
“Having been tasked with addressing the allegations, the minister of communications and digital technologies directed the Sita board to investigate the allegations,” said SITA board chairperson Kiruben Pillay.
“The board, thereafter, instructed an independent law firm to conduct the investigation. This was duly done.”
Pillay added that based on the result of this investigation, SITA withdrew its recommendation to award the tender to Blue Networks Consortium.
According to insiders, the Office of the Premier Alan Winde acknowledged receipt of the letter, but did not act on it.
Alan Winde, Premier of the Western Cape
SITA controversy
While it is calling the Western Cape Department of Education to account for an allegedly dodgy tender process, SITA has faced similar allegations this year.
This includes Digitech — the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies’ “digital products portal” — which cost over R740,000, yet used a Drupal template that costs $49 (R957 at the time). MyBroadband was told that SITA handled this redesign.
This portal also used “admin” for its username and password — leaving it exposed to malicious actors.
SITA was also involved in a controversy where the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) blew R432 million on an undelivered population register system.
The project was supposed to be completed by November 2018, but the deadline was missed.
EOH, the company contracted for the project, said in July that it had completed the two data centres as promised.
However, following an investigation by the Auditor-General, EOH ceded phase 2 of the contract to another company.
The Auditor-General found that the initial awarding of the tender to EOH was suspicious, as EOH and SITA officials had allegedly engineered an unlawful scheme to ensure EOH would land the contract.
This came after EOH was linked to state capture, resulting in a leadership shakeup at the company.
EOH’s then-group chief risk officer, Fatima Newman, told MyBroadband that they had cooperated fully with the investigation, which was included in its Parliamentary report.
“EOH successfully delivered 51 of the 60 contracted milestones for phase 1 of the Project, which have been signed off and accepted by the department,” Newman told MyBroadband.
EOH was reportedly paid R282 million for the completion of these milestones.
In light of the investigation’s findings and to avoid further delays, EOH ceded Phase 2 of the contract to French-owned multinational technology company Idemia, which the department paid over R150 million in April 2021. It gave Idemia six months to complete the work.
Notably, Idemia was the same company initially subcontracted under EOH to do the work. It had not delivered on the project.
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