[kictanet] Software procurement in kenya

Thu Sep 11 17:40:08 EAT 2008

I had a chance to attend the presentations by Alex and Evans to
PPOA and I think they did a very good job articulating issues
faced in Government ICT Procurement. In addition to procuring
agents not following the law (e.g. mentioning brands in tenders)
it also appears that they are not aware of International Best
Practices such as those advocated by WITSA
([1]http://www.witsa.org/papers/BestPracticesWhitePaper-final.pdf
). Those best practices are meant to ensure competition is not
precluded. Maybe these IBPs require to be incorporated into the
PPOA regulations. I reproduce a portion of the IBPs below:

             The Government ICT Procurement Process

The procurement process consists of a number of steps:

  * Needs Definition / Requirements
  * Request for Information (RFI)
  * Request for Comments
  * Request for Proposal
  * Proposal
  * Live Test and Demonstration
  * Best and Final Offer
  * Award
  * Protest Procedures

Depending on the size and complexity of the procurement, a given
acquisition may contain some or all of these stages.

Need

The acquisition process begins with the recognition of a need by
a governmental department for a capability or a service.  This
need must then be translated into a set of requirements so that
eventually a Request for Proposal (RFP) may be issued.  The scope
of this effort is generally invisible to potential bidders.

Request for Information (RFI)

During this phase of the procurement, government actively pursues
business input in the form of recommendations and presentations.
The input is generally solicited by the means of an RFI that
describes the government’s needs and perceived requirements.  If
done in a manner other than an RFI, governments should be careful
that their solicitation does not have the effect of precluding
competition.  Business thus has the opportunity to better
understand the requirements and the true needs of the end user.
During this stage, communication is open, and both industry and
the government are exploring needs and possible relevant
technologies.  If it has not already done so, business is also
beginning to assess potential partners.

Request for Comments (RFC)

An RFC on a draft Request for Proposals (RFP) is generally the
next document that the government issues.  It is based on the
input that the government has gathered during the RFI stage and
is based on a refinement of their needs and available
technologies.  Again, governments  should ensure that the RFC is
issued in an open and transparent manner so that it does not have
the effect of precluding competition.  In addition, if
governments use a contractor to help in writing an RFC, or later
the actual RFP, that contractor should be precluded from bidding
either alone or as a partner in the actual procurement,

 Ideally the RFC is a complete document outlining not only the
agency’s needs but also the proposed terms and conditions for the
contract.   While it takes considerable effort for the
governmental entity to produce a complete document at this stage,
it ultimately saves considerable time and effort for both parties
later on.  In addition, a complete document sends a signal to
industry that the government is serious and that the acquisition
is for “real”.  Unavailability of information at this stage, and
the inability to comment on it, often causes misunderstandings
and delay later on in the procurement process.

Request for Proposal (RFP)

Ideally, the acquiring governmental entity will have indicated in
the RFC a proposed schedule for the release of the RFP, and they
will adhere to it.  As the proposed release date draws near,
potential bidders will firm up bidding partners and will begin to
staff their proposal efforts.  In order to keep ultimate costs
down, government needs to adhere to their proposed timeframes
because delays and/or extensions at this point become quite
expensive for industry, and those costs are ultimately passed on
to the government.  It is important that governments allow ample
time for firms to prepare their proposals and also take into
consideration that foreign bidders may need additional time than
would a national entity.

Proposal

The proposal contains the bidder’s proposed technical solution,
management approach, and cost.  Proposals usually contain very
sensitive, and often confidential, commercial information.  It is
important that proposals be treated carefully by governments to
insure that this sensitive information is not released to
competitors.

While often delivery of the technical, management and cost
proposals are requested simultaneously, government could save
money, and often time, by requiring the cost proposal two to
three weeks after the others.  Late changes by bidders to their
technical proposals are often not adequately incorporated into
the cost proposal causing later disagreements and delays.

As the government reviews the proposals, they may request
clarifications or additional information from bidders.  Due to
the sensitivity of interactions with bidders at this stage, it is
important that this be done formally in writing and with good
documentation maintained.

Live Test and Demonstration (LTD)

 On very large and/or complex procurements, the government may
require that a Live Test and Demonstration or Operational
Capability Demonstration (OCD) be performed to demonstrate and
validate the proposed technologies.  Governments should provide
bidders selected for an LTD as much time as possible to prepare.
Bidders must obtain appropriate space, bring in required hardware
and equipment, assemble the right software and assemble staff for
the LTD.  LTDs and OCDs are very expensive efforts for the
bidders and for the government that sometimes must assemble
large, skilled evaluation teams.  Thus they should be required
sparingly and in very select situations.

Best and Final Offer (BAFO)

Once the proposal has been submitted and the LTD, if required has
been performed, bidders begin to finalize the prices from their
vendors, subcontractors and bidding partners and to fine-tune
their own costs.  The BAFO will also incorporate any changes
indicated by the LTD and any clarifications that may have been
requested from the government during their review of the
technical and management proposal.

Award

The award process consists of informing the selected bidder of
their success, and, more importantly, informing the losing
bidders of the reasons they were not selected.  Being open and
sensitive during this process is important and can help avoid
later problems and protests.

Losing bidders want to understand in as much detail as possible
areas where their proposals were deficient.  Providing the
information at this time will allow them to improve their
processes for their next effort and also assures them that the
process was transparent and fair.  If bidders feel information is
being withheld, it raises their suspicions about the entire
process and may lead to a formal Protest simply as a means of
acquiring more information.

Protest

A formal protest procedure to higher authority and ultimately to
an independent authority is important to providing an open,
accessible, fair, transparent and documented procurement
process.  This provides an opportunity for bidders to be heard
and to receive an explanation of why a given bid was turned
down.  Protesting is a significant event that bidders do not take
lightly.  The process is expensive for both the bidder and the
government, ties up critical resources, and potentially
negatively impacts the image of the bidder in the eyes of the
government.  However, an effective protest process will help
maintain competition in current and future procurements.

On Thu, 11 Sep 2008 01:57:15 -0700 (PDT), "wesley kiriinya" <kiriinya2000
@yahoo.com> said:

 I think there are two things in this argument.

 First when a company/gvmnt is buying the back end/base software
 e.g. a database/operating systems. I agree that "...procuring
 agents should not mention any trade marks, companies or product
 names when requesting for quotations..."

 Second when a company/gvmnt is buying middle level software that
 should operate with the back end software and in this case I
 think that the procuring agents should atleast mention what the
 back end software is. This is useful information to anyone
 willing to submit a quotation.

 Regards.
 8~)

 I don't want to go to Hell, I don't want to stay on Earth, but
 what I'm I going to do in Heaven.
 --- On Wed, 9/10/08, Liko Agosta <likoa at verviant.com> wrote:

   From: Liko Agosta <likoa at verviant.com>
   Subject: Re: [kictanet] Software procurement in kenya
   To: kiriinya2000 at yahoo.com
   Cc: kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke
   Date: Wednesday, September 10, 2008, 10:09 AM
 Evans ...

 We are a services company that provides both Closed Source and Open Sourc
 e
 Consulting to clients ....

 We build on what clients have already paid for...

 We can discuss TCO ...

 Liko Agosta, CEO
 Verviant Consulting Services.

 www.verviant.com

 Phone    : 1-919-341-1820
 Fax        : 1-978-268-8403

 Toll Free: 1-866-551-4935

 Pager: 9193891551 at txt.att.net

 -----Original Message-----
 From: Evans Ikua [mailto:ikua at lpakenya.org]
 Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2008 2:48 AM
 To: Liko Agosta
 Cc: kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke
 Subject: RE: [kictanet] Software procurement in kenya

 Liko,
 There is nothing wrong with the Law. It only needs to be followed. It
 actually has very good intentions of making sure that all (technology)
 suppliers get an equal opportunity to tender for a whatever it is.
 Mind you, once the tenders have been received and opened, the client
 is under no obligation to buy from anyone, not even the lowest price.

 Our argument is this; say a ministry wants to buy a SQL DB Server.
 They advertise this without mentioning MS SQL Server anywhere (that's
 what the law says). You quote your SQL Server at KSh 5.6m (you are a
 MS Gold Partner), and I quote my Open Source SQL server at 0.5m (I am
 only selling my services and not licenses). The tendering committee
 now has two options and the guys in IT can defend their choice of
 technology, and the TCO that goes with it, all the way from having to
 buy upgrade licenses a year later or so. Then the decision is made. At
 this point, nobody can come and tell them that they must buy this or
 that, its their decision. Important thing is that the management has
 seen all the options available.

 If this law is broken in your favour, I don't expect you to have a
 problem with it. You are happy. No?

 It is this that will raise management questions about the cost of
 license upgrades vis a vis the cost of migrating to FOSS products. A
 Ministry would save more by migrating to Scalix than upgrading to MS
 Exchange in the long term. But how does the accounting officer get to
 know this if the IT guy only requests a particular brand name, leaving
 out everyone else? For public institutions that are running on our
 taxes, we want to know that they are spending money prudently. They
 cant be given a blank cheque.

 --
 Evans Ikua
 Linux Professional Association of Kenya
 Tel: +254-20-2250381, Cell: +254-722 955 831
 Eagle House, 2nd Floor
 Kimathi Street, Opp. Corner House
 www.lpakenya.org

 Quoting Liko Agosta <likoa at verviant.com>:

 > Evans,
 >
 > That law should be changed :)
 >
 > If a government agency has already invested in some technology stack, t
 hey
 > should have the right to say they want a solution that ran's on that
 > technology stack ....lets says Microsoft SQL Server ..
 >
 > Why ... The license for SQL server will be a sunk cost at that point an
 d
 > getting different technology is making a bigger financial commitment an
 d
 > raising project risk .... also .. if the customers programmers/admins k
 now
 > C# and SQL Server or Websphere and DB2, the client has the right to pic
 k
 > that platform ...
 >
 > We have ran into this with our clients. Whenever we are doing project
 > discovery, we will find out which technologies they currently have/supp
 ort
 > ... if a client has SQL Server, we will typical ask for usage reports f
 or
 > that SQL server box and in most cases, we have been able to save money
 by
 > "adding to" their existing infrastructure ... or tuning their
 existing
 > infrastructure to take more load.
 >
 > Many organizations we have worked with tend to buy a servers/software
 > licenses for each project ... we advice against this and are usually fo
 r
 > consolidation and better management. That way a 4 CPU license for SQL
 Server
 > Enterprise Edition (approx USD 80,000) will be apportioned to the 20
 systems
 > or projects that will use a well tuned 4CPU SQL server ....
 >
 > So .. good intentions... bad law ... why enforce or spend time on it
 >
 > My 2 cents
 >
 > Liko Agosta, CEO
 > Verviant Consulting Services.
 >
 > www.verviant.com
 >  Phone    : 1-919-341-1820
 > Fax        : 1-978-268-8403
 >  Toll Free: 1-866-551-4935
 >  Pager: 9193891551 at txt.att.net
 >
 >
 > -----Original Message-----
 > From: kictanet-bounces+likoa=verviant.com at lists.kictanet.or.ke
 > [mailto:kictanet-bounces+likoa=verviant.com at lists.kictanet.or.ke] On
 Behalf
 > Of Evans Ikua
 > Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2008 1:34 PM
 > To: Liko Agosta
 > Cc: kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke
 > Subject: [kictanet] Software procurement in kenya
 >
 > Interesting what Google can come up with:
 >
 >
 http://www.linuxworld.com/news/2008/052308-kenya-linux-group-challenges-p
 roc
 > urement.html?fsrc=rss-linux-news
 >
 >
 > We finally got to meet with the PPOA on Friday, 5th September. We had
 > a very fruitful discussion on the Public Procurement and Disposal Act
 > 2005, whose provisions are being ignored by Government procurement
 > agents:
 >
 > https://ict-innovation.fossfa.net/taxonomy/blog-tags/kenya
 >
 > This good law stipulates that procuring agents should not mention any
 > trade marks, companies or product names when requesting for
 > quotations. They are required to just give the specs of what they need
 > to accomplish. But how many times do we see these RFQs with brand
 > names such as Microsoft *?. This has got to stop and nobody has any
 > excuse to break the law with impunity.
 >
 > We will be putting details of the proceedings on our website soon, and
 > also in the media.
 >
 >
 > --
 > Evans Ikua
 > Linux Professional Association of Kenya
 > Tel: +254-20-2250381, Cell: +254-722 955 831
 > Eagle House, 2nd Floor
 > Kimathi Street, Opp. Corner House
 > www.lpakenya.org
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >
 > _______________________________________________
 > kictanet mailing list
 > kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke
 > http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet
 >
 > This message was sent to: likoa at verviant.com
 > Unsubscribe or change your options at
 > http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/likoa%40verviant.c
 om
 >
 >
 >

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References

1. http://www.witsa.org/papers/BestPracticesWhitePaper-final.pdf
People make a plan work, a plan alone seldom makes people work (Confucius).

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