By Kathy Gibson – A group of resellers is crying foul over the State IT Agency (SITA)’s handling of the ongoing RFB0740 tender controversy.
Having won what appeared to be a commitment to address their grievances yesterday morning, events in the afternoon seem to have scuppered the hopes of resellers excluded from participating in the transversal tender.
About 30 resellers representing about 200 companies from around the country met yesterday at SITA’s Erasmuskloof offices to protest being excluded from the new tender. All the companies were accredited on the previous 2005 and 2007 tenders.
The new list of accredited suppliers that government offices can procure devices from was released on Tuesday (25 May). The tender process had been carried out online and was characterised by at least two crashes of the GCommerce system.
During yesterday’s engagement, SITA’s chief risk officer Mimi le Roux told resellers the published list is provisional and will be updated within four weeks, which was confirmed in a letter from SITA to government departments later in the morning.
However, yesterday afternoon, most – if not all – of the companies taking part in protesting the tender award received letters notifying them that they will not be accredited for the transversal tender.
The letter to one of the organisations reads: “Thank you for expressing interest in our environment and for submitting your bid.
“We regret to inform you that the evaluation process thus far concluded that your bid has been unsuccessful due to non-compliance with the mandatory requirements of the bidding process.
“We look forward to your re-engagement in the process when SITA conducts a refresh of this transversal agreement.”
One of the resellers contesting the tender award says the lack of any detail or explanation about why the companies failed in their bid is concerning.
In the memorandum delivered yesterday, the group asked that the current list of accredited suppliers be suspended while submissions are reviewed, since they believe that administrative errors and a failure of SITA’s GCommerce system could have led to the exclusion of many companies.
To date, they have not received any acknowledgement or reply from SITA CEO Luvoyo Keyise, or any other representatives from SITA or the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies, which received a copy of the memorandum.
The group of resellers now excluded from the contact are mostly black-owned SMEs and SMMEs that have built their businesses on the transversal contact and now face closure.