Top ICT tenders: Eskom looks to cellular for remote metering

Other tenders that make this week’s top 10:

• The Border Management Authority (BMA) invites interested parties to submit proposals for the implementation and support of a cloud-based (SaaS) IT service management (ITSM) tool and service desk telephony. The tool will ensure there is adequate visibility at the BMA’s 71 ports of entry, improving service quality and delivering value to the organisation.

• The BMA is also advertising for the supply and installation of advanced electronic signatures for 150 employees and a cloud-based document approval solution. The BMA currently uses a manual process to approve and sign internal documents which has several drawbacks, including delays in approvals.

• The State Information Technology Agency (SITA) is calling for the hosting, support, enhancement and maintenance of the website for the presidency. The agency notes the website serves as the primary communication tool as a critical information database and point of interest for the public and stakeholders both inside South Africa and globally. The website must be a showcase of digital innovation at the centre of government and exemplary presentation of information to and interaction with the public and institutional stakeholders, says SITA.

• Civilian Secretariat for Police Services wishes to appoint a qualified and experienced service provider to design, implement and support a cloud-based disaster recovery and business continuity solution. It will enhance the department’s resilience by providing secure, scalable and highly-available disaster recovery capabilities, ensuring rapid recovery in the event of a system failure, cyber incident, natural disaster or other unforeseen disruption.

• Mpumalanga’s Provincial Treasury is calling for the development, implementation and maintenance of an electronic sourcing system (e-sourcing) for the provincial government. The provincial government is currently sourcing goods and services manually with no system to rotate suppliers for fairness. As a result, dissatisfied creditors and suppliers defeat government’s strategic objective of empowering SMMEs, it says.

• Ethekwini Metropolitan Municipality requires comprehensive guidance and support as well as training with regard to the implementation of the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) in compliance with legislative requirements. The request is a continuation of a POPIA compliance project commenced in 2024 which resulted in a high-level Gap assessment. This made a number of recommendations, including drafting and implementing certain new privacy-related documents; the need to address POPIA-compliance shortcomings in the municipality’s seven clusters and/or units; and the recommendation that the municipality undertake a process of implementing standard operating procedures related to the nuances of each cluster’s area of operation or managing access to personal information in each cluster.

• The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) wishes to appoint a service provider for the provision of network infrastructure maintenance, including hardware, software and licensing support. The SABC says its network contains several components, with the most important being the network hardware infrastructure. An upgrade of the firewall as well as several edge switches was done in 2019 and 2020, and the maintenance contract for these will end in May 2025. Within the existing infrastructure, there are firewalls, routers and switches which are required to be on maintenance and support to keep them as functional and stable as possible, while at the same time enabling hardware replacement in the event of failure.

• The SABC closes the issue with a request for information on omni-channel contact centre solutions for its TV licences business unit. The proposed solutions should have built-in AI-powered tools for quality assurance, automation and data analytics to support and optimise the management of approximately 12 million active accounts. The broadcaster notes its current system was implemented in May 2023 and was intended as an interim measure. A more sustainable and long-term solution is now critical to ensure efficient revenue collection, enhanced customer service delivery and growth, it says.