ICT minister, Dr Chris Baryomunsi, listens to a presentation at a previous conference in 2023. Uganda Telecommunications Corporation Limited will soon start managing operations of the National Backbone Infrastructure and e-Government Infrastructure. PHOTO | FILE
The 11 month-long procurement for the Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) Centre, a key infrastructure under the $200m (Shs750b) World Bank funded Uganda Digital Acceleration Project-Government Network (UDAP-GOVNET) project, has taken a new twist with claims of influence peddling and freezing of the tender.
The $3.5m (Shs12.7b) procurement tender for the MAN commenced in February with the implementing agency, the National Information Technology Authority-Uganda (NITA-U),placing adverts in The East African and the New Vision calling for interested bidders to express interest.
The deal includes, among others relocating the MAN, which insiders de- scribe as the “heartbeat” of the National Backbone Infrastructure and e-Government Infrastructure (eGI) system, from its current location in the basement of Statistic House along Colville street in Kampala to a more spacious site.
According to tender documents, the MAN Centre, is also a “carrier colocation facility, with a number of racks belonging to private Internet Private Service Providers (IPSS), which makes its integrity of utmost importance to the country’s internet infrastructure.”
The first MAN Centre was constructed as part of the first phases of implementation of the NBI/eGI by the Chinese vendor, Huawei, with network protection from possible backdoor infiltration provided by American companies.
On the back burner
In the latest saga, sources close to the tender intimated to the Monitor of the months-long tight rope pulling be- tween NITA-U top management and the World Bank and its supervising minis- try of ICT over handling of the $3.5m ten- der for relocation to a spacious location.
Sources intimated that trouble started after the evaluation team carried out a technical evaluation of proposals of the bidders and generated a shortlist, and a report submitted to the NITA-U EXCO for relaying to the World Bank.
According to tender documents, bids were received from four vendors: Sybyl Limited and Encapsulated East Africa Ltd Sybyl JV; Technology Associates Ltd JV Toptech Engineering Ltd; Konvergenz Network Solutions Ltd in JV Konvergenz Network Solutions (U) Ltd; and Forever- ness Projects FP, which failed at preliminary technical examination. Sybyl Limited and Encapsulated East Africa Ltd Sybyl JV would be evaluated as the best bidder with a score of 84 per- cent,according to the merit point technical evaluation report seen by this news- paper.
Elsewhere, Technology Associates Ltd JV Toptech Engineering Ltd and Konvergenz Network Solutions Ltd in JV/ Konvergenz Network Solutions (U) Ltd scored 55 and 51 percent. The five-member evaluation committee submitted the technical evaluation report to the NITA-U Executive Commit- tee (Exco), which implements decisions and overseas operations, in June for re- laying to the World Bank. We understand that the Exco “sat on the report”, as one source put it, for weeks that turned to months.
It only emerged later that some senior members of the team were “unhappy” with the evaluation report which did not include one of the bidders they rooted for. The vendor in question is alleged to be a front for one of the Chinese vendors blacklisted by the World Bank. Our sources further disclosed that NI-TA submitted a request to the World Bank to re-do the evaluation for the MAN Centre.
The World Bank, however, wrote back asking for justification for going back to the drawing board. “The Bank further inquired why they (Exco) had bypassed the Steering Committee and gone straight to request for re-evaluation,” sources close to the tender told this publication.
Things fall apart
The NITA-U executive director, Hatwib Mugasa yesterday discounted the reports, saying that procurement is still ongoing.
“All approvals were received as per the World Bank procedures and the procurement is going on well.”
Dr Mugasa described as “untrue” the reports of freezing the tender, saying: “I know the people inside NITA feeding you information, but those are not facts.” However, according to our sources, in- stead the World Bank forwarded the re- quest for re-evaluation of the MAN Centre to the UDAP project Steering Committee, which also quizzed NITA-U to justify the request for re-evaluation.
This was especially because technical evaluation had indicated that the requirements as submitted to the World Bank at the start of the project were being met by the bidder with the highest technical score. The committee, which serves as the executive board comprises technical officials from the ministries of ICT, Finance, Local Government, National Environ- ment Management Authority (NEMA), Office of Prime Minister (OPM), and Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority (PPDA). We understand that the steering committee ordered a freeze on the procurement.
The committee is also scheduled to sit in the coming details to guide on the way forward. When asked why the steering committee was due to sit over the matter if the procurement process was going on smoothly as he stated, Dr Mugasa defended that “those are minute details I don’t want to go into; I can’t start telling you when which meeting sat and who attended, but please note that procurement is ongoing well.”
The ministry of ICT Permanent Secretary, Dr Amina Zawedde, the technical supervisor of NITA, was not immediately available by all channels for a comment on the matter.
Her office said she was out of the country. But since commencement last year the UDAP-GOVNET project has been beset by a litany of scandals some of which are the subject of an investigation by the State House Anti-Corruption Unit, which wrote to Dr Mugasa in September requesting for files relating to the project.
On December 10, the IGG, Ms Beti Kamya wrote to Dr Mugasa halting any activity relating to one of the project components; internet bandwidth for government, on among other grounds that only one bidder was qualified for the next level of procurement.
This publication first reported in July about a fallout inside NITA-U which led to the non-renewal of contracts of several technical staff over the rehiring of Huawei for key components. This, we pointed out, included the MAN Centre going against hiring of multiple vendors as is the custom in cyber security.
Petition
Meanwhile, a section of NITA-U staff on November 28 petitioned the ministries of Finance and Public Service as well as the Auditor General and PPDA, lifting the lid on a number of malfeasances. They have since called for a 360-probe ahead of the three-year merger transition period. In the petition to the different governance offices, the staff red-flagged the NI-A-U “board involving itself in the day-to-day operations” of the authority purporting to be doing NITA-U work” instead of playing the oversight role.”
Dr Mugasa discounted the claims, saying the NITA-U hierarchy is clear and the board is only limited to governance issues.
“We have a board that we (management) reports to and it is supervised by the ministry (of ICT) and if that were true as it is being alleged perhaps that would be revisiting our charter...All those are rumours unless of course the claimants are providing clear evidence.”
On November 24, the ICT minister Chris Baryomunsi told Parliament that implementation of the UDAP-GOVNET and NBI/EGI projects are on track. Out of the $200m for the UDAP-GOVNET project, he revealed that $94.67m (Shs367b) has been fully programmed and initiated representing 47 percent absorption.
The UDAP-GOVNET project was in September flagged by the Finance ministry as the most poorly implemented project.
