Top ICT tenders: SASSA targets BI to improve processes

It’s an interesting week on National Treasury’s eTenders Portal, with the public sector targeting a wide range of requirements.

It is the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA), however, that takes the headline with its request for a business intelligence (BI) solution and data purification services.

The agency, which has multiple challenges in addressing customer experience and combatting fraud, believes the initiative will improve its decision-making processes, enhance operational efficiency and improve customer experience.

In its tender documentation, SASSA reveals it contracted Microsoft South Africa in 2015 to build an integrated data warehouse and business intelligence solution. Currently, its data warehouse uses the Microsoft Analytics Platform System (APS) and applies Ralph Kimball’s dimensional modelling method. However, the APS has reached end of life and is no longer supported.

The agency has since migrated the grants administration operational data store to the Oracle Private Cloud Appliance, but it notes its data volumes have grown rapidly due to its added responsibility of administering the COVID Social Relief of Distress grant.

“There is a critical business need to integrate data from all the operational systems, both structured and unstructured, to produce a single and logical version of the truth in order to support and enhance decision-making.”

The agency adds it aims to use artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve decision-making and combat fraud.

SASSA’s tender documentation says it wants to “develop” a BI platform that provides for integration of data from disparate operational sources into subject areas organised by commonly understood business terms and validated for accuracy to ensure the business can rely on it to make decisions.

It specifies it requires an analytics platform that will support the collection, cleansing, governance and management of the data and relevant metadata and support information delivery via multiple approaches, ranging from reports to portals, to analytical and visualisation tools.

The agency will hold a non-compulsory briefing on 29 October before it closes submissions on 14 November.

Other tenders that make this week’s top 10:

• The Western Cape Department of Health is inviting bids for the provision of Microsoft training for employees in all institutions under the control of the Western Cape Government Health and Wellness. The training will be targeted at healthcare professionals and support staff situated across six regions and satellite offices, and cover courses for beginners, intermediate and advanced competencies.

• Gauteng’s Department of Economic Development wishes to appoint a service provider to conduct data collection and do geospatial mapping of MSMEs at ward level across the province. The department says it requires complete, accurate and up-to-date economic intelligence to support evidence-based policymaking, targeted interventions and strategic economic development initiatives. This project will create the most detailed economic database of the province, covering every street, business and economic asset at the ward level.

• The Airports Company of South Africa (ACSA) is advertising for the provision of a quality management system (QMS). ACSA’s existing QMS has several operational inefficiencies that impact audit performance, data accuracy, inability to generate timely reports and overall system reliability. These include frequent connectivity issues, bulk data processing limitations, configuration issues across multiple airports, syncing of surveys and the current application not being ISO compliant.

• Eskom is calling for the supply, delivery, installation and commissioning of the equipment (software and hardware) required for the operations and maintenance of the PV plant at Rosherville. The rackmount server with new licensed SCADA version must be installed and commissioned. To do this, the supplier will be working in the existing control room of the plant, and it has all the field signal cables terminating in the network cabinet.

• Eskom’s National Transmission Company South Africa (NTCSA) is calling for the manufacture, testing, supply and delivery of estimated quantities of power telecoms cables in various NTCSA sites on an “as and when required” basis. This will include standard indoor and outdoor telephone cable; high frequency coaxial cable for power line carrier applications; data cable required for X.21 interfaces; and miniature control cable required for tele-protection signals.

• Staying with NTCSA, bids are invited for the design, supply, delivery, installation, commissioning, maintenance, support and training of an operational technology security information and event management (SIEM) solution. The company says this solution will provide the necessary cyber security controls to enable monitoring and surveillance of critical systems and provide alerts, triage and reporting when suspicious activity or known threats are detected.

• The Department of Electricity and Energy has withdrawn its tender for the appointment of a panel of consultants to render forensic audit, information system audit and internal audit services and issued a new tender. While the scope of work appears to have remained the same, the department has updated the evaluation criteria and extended the deadline for submissions.

• The Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) is advertising for a cloud-based contact centre solution and an end-to-end cloud telephony solution. The commission says exceptional customer service requires the necessary contact centre tools, systems and integration to help achieve its goals. Additionally, it requires an end-to-end cloud telephony system for its head office and all its current and future branches.

• The CIPC also wishes to appoint a service provider to implement an enterprise search engine, preferably combined with a workflow solution, and provide training, maintenance and support. The commission explains it prefers to replace both the current Computron workflow solution and Verity search engine together with a new solution that combines workflow with a search engine, but if service providers are only able to provide a search engine, it will still consider the bid. In these cases, it has to be stated explicitly that the search engine allows for future API integration with a workflow solution of the CIPC’s choice.