Gauteng Online: Criticism grows

A new, closed tender for Gauteng Online has been issued, raising more criticism about the expensive project. But the government is refusing to give any details about its plans around the school computer venture. Last week, the Gauteng Department of Finance issued a closed tender to a few companies, asking them to submit a tender to supply 80 000 tablets for schools. They were given just seven days to submit a tender. The tender documents ask the companies to supply content and connectivity, but The Star has been told by two separate sources that the companies were told not to worry about that part of the tender and to concentrate only on the supply of the tablets. The tender asks that 50 tablets be supplied to each of the 1 600 schools.

Gauteng Online was first launched in 2001, with tenders given to a conglomerate of companies, including Sahara Computers. An amount of R1 billion was spent, but after six years there was hardly anything to show for the money spent. In 2007, the tender was reissued for R2bn and awarded to SMMT Online (now known as CloudSeed), with many queries raised about the project’s success. A new tender for the project was advertised at the beginning of the year, but the DA called for it to be investigated as uncompetitive because it gave an unfair advantage to CloudSeed. In March, the Finance Department said the tender had been cancelled and would be joined to a Gauteng broadband tender that had been advertised earlier in the year. Finance MEC Mandla Nkomfe said at the time the department was looking at tablets and it did not need school computer labs any longer.

The announcement for the broadband tender has not yet been made. This tender is named the e-Learning Solution End User Devices, and there is no indication how the project will be rolled out or how it will work. In the legislature yesterday, the DA asked the premier about the broadband tender as well as the new tender for tablets. DA Gauteng finance spokesman Mike Moriarty said Premier Nomvula Mokonyane had expressed irritation that matters regarding tenders were being brought to the legislature. Moriarty said the premier insisted that tenders should not be the business of legislature members. “In other words, she does not want the tender process to be scrutinised. This is of extreme concern,” Moriarty added.

The Department of Finance refused to give The Star any further information about the tender. “We can confirm that the department has issued a closed tender for end-user devices. Note that this is a closed period and that the department is precluded by legislation from entertaining any correspondence until this process has been satisfactorily concluded,” was the response given to questions. An IT expert, who did not want to be named, said the whole process around Gauteng Online seemed to indicate that the government was struggling with a clear strategy. “This (the tablet tender) looks like a quick-fix effort. They need to give the public an indication why this will not be a failed Gauteng Online project,” the expert said.

Experts in the computer industry have said the tender for tablets would cost between R250m and R400m. The real costs would be in connectivity. “Who will pay for the broadband?” the IT expert asked. “The cheapest data bundle is R100 a month. If you want to provide a tablet for every child and there are 1.5m learners in Gauteng, that is about R4 billion. Who will pay for that?”