[kictanet] Software procurement in kenya

Fri Sep 12 11:07:23 EAT 2008

I got the below from our PO and thought it fair to share.

________________________________

From: Peter Munene 
Sent: Friday, September 12, 2008 9:38 AM
To: James Kagwe
Subject: RE: [kictanet] Software procurement in kenya

Thanks for your comments on whether you can procure using brand name or
not. However seem to miss the point! Please refer to "The Public
Procurement and Disposal Act, 2005" Section 34 paragraph 4 (a) and (b).
Using brand name is not breaking the law (am assuming we are talking
about Kenya law) as long as you follow the prescribed regulations in the
Act. Thanks and study the Act! 

James,

You may forward my comments to the origin.

________________________________

From: James Kagwe 
Sent: Friday, September 12, 2008 8:46 AM
To: Peter Munene
Subject: FW: [kictanet] Software procurement in kenya

This might be of interest to you

________________________________

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
(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 at 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
Source

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,
they

> 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
and

> getting different technology is making a bigger financial commitment
and

> raising project risk .... also .. if the customers programmers/admins
know

> C# and SQL Server or Websphere and DB2, the client has the right to
pick

> 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/support

> ... if a client has SQL Server, we will typical ask for usage reports
for

> 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
for

> 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-
proc

> 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

> 

> 

> 

> 

> 

> 

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> 

> 

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