It’s another subdued week on National Treasury’s eTenders Portal with little for the ICT industry to get particularly excited about. The hardware sector will be drawn to two tenders that could turn out to be interesting.
Taking the headline is a request from Eskom for the pre-qualification of various suppliers for the manufacturing and supply of cellular network modems. These will be required for remote metering for its distribution business on an ’as and when’ required basis.
In its tender documentation, the utility explains that metering modems are used with energy meters to remotely retrieve load profile data from these meters. These meters include all its large power user meters used on this customer segment and statistical meters.
“It is critical to have sufficient modems available to download metering data for customer billing. Not having access to modems will negatively impact the ability to bill customers accurately and on time, thereby affecting revenue recovery,” the utility explains.
Eskom is specifying two types of cellular network modems, 4G and narrowband internet of things, which will be deployed at remote metering sites and shall be used for the remote retrieval of data from the electricity meters to the respective data acquisition systems or head-end systems.
Suppliers may tender for a single modem or both modem options, the utility says.
The second notable hardware tender comes from the National Research Foundation (NRF), which is inviting bids for the supply, installation and configuration of data storage servers, monitor servers and high-speed networking equipment at the Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) in Rosebank, Cape Town.
“The [South African Radio Astronomy Observatory’s] Science Data Processing (SDP) subsystem performs a significant compute and storage function for MeerKAT. The SDP’s primary function is the processing and storage of radio astronomy data products produced by the telescope operated by SARAO. It is expected that the MeerKAT Extension project will significantly increase the telescope’s demand for storage, necessitating the expansion of our existing storage system,” the foundation reveals.
The current storage system, however, is only able to store 200 days’ worth of scientific observations, after which data starts being moved to tape. If scientists would like to access the data after this time, the observations have to be restored from tape.
As this is not a practical or sustainable solution, it has been decided to expand the capacity of the storage system to 56PB to cater for the expected growth of the data over the next five years. Storage will be expanded in a phased approach.
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.
New tenders
Border Management Authority
Interested parties are invited to submit proposals for the implementation and support of a cloud-based SaaS ITSM tool and service desk telephony for 36 months, including maintenance and support.
Compulsory briefing: 5 May – Microsoft Teams
Tender no: H004L2512RFP00185
Information: Moipone Molatoli, Tel: 064 998 6767, E-mail: Moipone.Molatoli@bma.gov.za
Closing date: 16 May 2025
Tags: Software, services, software as a service, IT service management, ITSM, service desk, telephony, support and maintenance
The BMA is also advertising for the supply and installation of advanced electronic signatures for 150 employees and a cloud-based document approval solution for three years.
Non-compulsory briefing: 5 May – Microsoft Teams
Tender no: H004L2501RFP00211
Information: Moipone Molatoli, Tel: 064 998 6767, E-mail: Moipone.Molatoli@bma.gov.za
Closing date: 16 May 2025
Tags: Software, security, electronic signature, document approval, cloud computing
State Information Technology Agency
SITA is calling for the hosting, support, enhancement and maintenance of the website for the presidency for five years.
Non-compulsory briefing: 16 April – Microsoft Teams
Tender no: RFB 3085-2024
Information: Mpfareleni Muneri, Tel: 012 367 3951, E-mail: Mpfareleni.Muneri@sita.co.za
Closing date: 15 May 2025
Tags: Software, web development, hosting, services, support and maintenance
National Research Foundation
Bids are invited for the supply, installation and configuration of data storage servers, monitor servers and high-speed networking equipment at the CHPC.
Compulsory briefing: 23 April – Zoom, Link
Tender no: NRF/SARAO SDP/01/2025-26
Information: Hugo Hamman, Tel: 021 506 7300, E-mail: hhamman@sarao.ac.za
Closing date: 16 May 2025
Tags: Hardware, servers, networking, data storage servers, monitor servers, high-speed networking
Civilian Secretariat for Police Services
The oversight body wishes to appoint a qualified and experienced service provider to design, implement and support a cloud-based disaster recovery and business continuity solution for three years.
Tender no: CSPS01/2025-2026
Information: Lena Mokoena, Tel: 012 493 1368, E-mail: Lena.Mokoena@csp.gov.za
Closing date: 15 May 2025
Tags: Software, services, cloud computing, security, disaster recovery, business continuity
Provincial Treasury, Mpumalanga
The department is calling for the development, implementation and maintenance of an electronic sourcing system (e-sourcing) for the Mpumalanga provincial government for 36 months, with an option to extend.
Compulsory briefing: 29 April
Tender no: TREA/019/25/MP Re-advertisement
Information: LJ Radebe, Tel: 013 766 4380, E-mail: LJRadebe@mpg.gov.za
Closing date: 16 May 2025
Tags: Software, software development, electronic sourcing, e-sourcing, supply chain management, services, support and maintenance
Ethekwini Metropolitan Municipality
The coastal metro requires support for compliance with POPIA for 24 months.
Tender no: 30414-1A
Information: Abin Badal, Tel: 031 322 8897, Email: Abin.badal@durban.gov.za. Contractual: Thabisile Ngcobo or Ncamsile Mazibuko, Tel: 031 311 7425, Email: ncamsile.mazibuko@durban.gov.za or thabisile.msomi@durban.gov.za
Closing date: 9 May 2025
Tags: Services, professional services, consulting, data security, privacy, information protection, POPIA, Protection of Personal Information Act
South African Broadcasting Corporation
The SABC requests proposals for the appointment of a service provider for the provision of network infrastructure maintenance, including hardware, software and licensing support for three years.
Non-compulsory briefing: 24 April – Virtual
Tender no: RFP/IT/2025/10247201/7
Information: Lerato Mamogobo, Tel: 011 714 4644, E-mail: tenderqueries@sabc.co.za
Closing date: 6 May 2025
Tags: Hardware, software, networking, licensing, services, support and maintenance
Eskom
The utility wishes to pre-qualify various suppliers for the manufacturing and supply of cellular network modems for remote metering for distribution on an ‘as and when’ required basis for 60 months.
Non-compulsory briefing: 22 April – Microsoft Teams, Links
Tender no: E1142DXLP
Information: Motsatsi Magwele, Tel: 015 230 1729, E-mail: Magwelme@eskom.co.za
Closing date: 9 May 2025
Tags: Hardware, telecommunications, cellular, networking, modems, remote metering
Request for information
SABC
The broadcaster requests information on omni-channel contact centre solutions.
Tender no: RFI/TVL/2025/2
Information: Nombulelo Ntozini, Tel: 011 714 4644, E-mail: tenderqueries@sabc.co.za
Closing date: 28 April 2025
Tags: Software, contact centre, call centre, omni-channel contact centre
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