[OSGeo Africa] ESRI in Government and tender requirements

Tue Oct 16 04:53:41 PDT 2018

Walter,

I share your sentiments. Selling a client something they don’t need or more than what is called for is wrong and if people are SAGC registered, they should account for such.

In fact the SAGC code of conduct actually obligates every registered person to report such if they come across any wrongdoing.

Regards

Peter

From: Africa <africa-bounces at lists.osgeo.org> On Behalf Of Walter Smit
Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2018 8:44 AM
To: Africa local chapter discussions <africa at lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: Re: [OSGeo Africa] ESRI in Government and tender requirements

What I want to know is: who is the person from ESRI who provided that spec? Who is that person who is deliberately selling something that he/she KNOWS the client does not need. That is totally unethical!

I want that person’s details and if he/she is registered with SAGC – I am reporting him/her. 

It is just as unethical as to tell a builder he needs 10 000 bags of cement, when you know he only needs 100.

From: Africa [mailto:africa-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Gavin Fleming
Sent: 15 October 2018 22:20
To: Africa local chapter discussions <africa at lists.osgeo.org <mailto:africa at lists.osgeo.org> >
Cc: records at gsibande.gov.za <mailto:records at gsibande.gov.za> 
Subject: Re: [OSGeo Africa] ESRI in Government and tender requirements

Hi Xolisile 

Herewith the ’tender notice’. I do wonder why they’re removed it from their website. They are cc’d so perhaps they can respond. 

On 15 Oct 2018, at 16:59, Xolisile Gcobo <xolisilegcobo at gmail.com <mailto:xolisilegcobo at gmail.com> > wrote:

Hi all, 

Gavin, it seems the link has been disabled and that does not necessarily mean it is cancelled. 

Would you kindly load the specification for us to view and see how we can participate in taking the matter forwards.

Xolisile GCOBO

Africa Geospatial Perspective DSS

On Fri, 12 Oct 2018 at 07:05, Gavin Fleming <gavinjfleming at gmail.com <mailto:gavinjfleming at gmail.com> > wrote:

To continue this thread, here is another tender that should be cancelled forthwith:  

Gert Sibande District Municipality TENDER NO GSDM: 72/2018 GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM (GIS): SOFTWARE LICENSING AND SUPPORT FOR A PERIOD OF THIRTY SIX (36) MONTHS [1]

https://gs.arimur.co.za/index.php?option=com_zoo <https://gs.arimur.co.za/index.php?option=com_zoo&task=item&item_id=5431&category_id=58&Itemid=287> &task=item&item_id=5431&category_id=58&Itemid=287

Flaws include:

- This purports to be a tender but is no more than a regurgitated ESRI quotation without prices.

- Govt entities are not allowed to request specific software but have to request a solution and preferably go for an open source offering

- There is no functional requirement (so they’re just buying it, it doesn’t have to do anything): “This tender will not be subjected to functionality evaluation”

- Their ‘bill of quantities’ for ESRI software is complete overkill. They don’t have the staff to expertise to use even half of those licences.

- how is this competitive when there’s only one company that can respond?

- “Tenderers must have the necessary skills, experience and capacity to perform the required work”. What work is there in selling licences?

- Their previous ESRI ELA has actually ended and this is a thinly veiled attempt at renewing it, which is not allowed, yet they state “The Gert Sibande District Municipality (GSDM) is in a process of maintaining the existing Service Level Agreement (SLA-ELA) with regard to licensing and maintenance of its GIS, which is established on the Arc Suite of products”. 

- Gert Sibande DM has already spent millions of Rands on ESRI software and now are being duped into spending more and becoming more locked into one vendor. I guess the free conference trips are an appealing sweetener. 

- In the current state of the economy with austerity measures in place this smacks of wasteful if not reckless expenditure.

- It’s not published on the central Govt tender portal (http://www.etenders.gov.za/content/advertised-tenders) where all Govt tenders are supposed to be published. 

- Since there are no services requested in the ’tender’ other than “support”, they should be saving themselves the trouble and expense of procuring software and instead install all open source themselves and rather put out a tender just for support services.

Please share other examples (there must be hundreds) and let’s get a grassroots movement going to change the status quo. We need a level playing field and Govt must speed up implementation of the 2007 open source policy. 

Every time you see a tender like this, push back to get it withdrawn and re-issued under fair and legal terms.

Anyone want to help tackle this one or are we going to just let this abuse of public funds continue?

Gavin

On 03 Aug 2018, at 21:29, Kashmira <kashmirab at gmail.com <mailto:kashmirab at gmail.com> > wrote:

Thanks 

However we should also get assurance from SITA to not prescribe ESRI but rather allow the choices of software to be more transparent that also goes for the prescribed SAP choice.

Kashmira 

On Fri, 03 Aug 2018, 4:48 PM Sindile Bidla, <sindile.bidla at geoilocate.co.za <mailto:sindile.bidla at geoilocate.co.za> > wrote:

Dear List,

The Department of Home Affairs has canceled the geographical accessibility study tender. Hopefully the new tender will not unfairly disadvantage other players in the sector.

Regards,

Sindile XJ Bidla

Geoilocate

---- On Mon, 30 Jul 2018 10:08:39 +0200 Sindile Bidla <sindile.bidla at geoilocate.co.za <mailto:sindile.bidla at geoilocate.co.za> > wrote ----

Dear List

Those who are concerned by this issue could perhaps raise it with the CFO (I have sent him an email and spoke to him on the phone). 

This creates a defacto monopoly with regards to GIS services in Government and does not encourage the emergence of other players.

Sindile XJ Bidla

---- On Mon, 30 Jul 2018 08:30:45 +0200 Zoltan <zoltans at geograph.co.za <mailto:zoltans at geograph.co.za> > wrote ----

Hi List,

To me, this is exactly the problem bodies like GISSA and SAGI need tackle.

These Institutes/Societies are "there for their members", whereas the Professional bodies (SAGC) are their for their "Members' clients" (very broadly speaking).

GISSA charges a pittance for its membership fees. 

SAGI doesn't (charge a pittance), but SAGI gets things done - more for their surveyors at this stage, but as their professional approach swings more to the GISc side, that is where things will start to happen for us (GISc types).

Join one, and become an evangelist/rabble-rouser or whatever you need to be in order to start swinging the tide.

It is ludicrous that in this age of technology we are told that a hand-brush is needed to maintain the data, so now use a hand-brush to capture it all.

Perhaps start by looking hard at the import/export options on ESRI products, and finding a way in through those methodologies.

Once the users see that data flows easily in and out of Arc, the next step can be taken.

Hope this thought helps.

Regards,

Zoltan

On 2018/07/30 07:37, Angie Atkinson wrote:

-- 

=============================================
Zoltan Szecsei GPrGISc 0031
Geograph (Pty) Ltd.
GIS and Photogrammetric Services

P.O. Box 7, Muizenberg 7950, South Africa.

Mobile: +27-83-6004028
Fax:    +27-86-6115323     www.geograph.co.za <http://www.geograph.co.za/> 
=============================================

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Hi Everyone,

I have just read all the comments and replies with regards to the requirement that one uses ESRI.

Something we have come across and what is a concern for us as well is that in most of the tenders, and will more than likely soon be come all tenders, stipulates that one needs to provide the municipality / government department with an ARC Map Package, no other software is compatible with this except for ARC, so unless the TORs states that one can provide shapefiles compatible with ESRI/ARC you will need to have ARC so that you can comply with the TOR requesting a Map Package.

Many of the Government Departments we work with have indicated that the ARC Map Package is the ARC GIS Format they are referring to when asking for data, some have amended the TORs to indicate that the data needs to be provided in ARC Map Package format.

Regards

Angie

From: Africa  <mailto:africa-bounces at lists.osgeo.org> <africa-bounces at lists.osgeo.org> On Behalf Of Gavin Fleming
Sent: Thursday, 26 July 2018 10:10
To: Africa local chapter discussions  <mailto:africa at lists.osgeo.org> <africa at lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: [OSGeo Africa] ESRI in Government and tender requirements

Hi all

I attended the briefing session for the Department of Home Affairs geographical accessibility study (Thanks Zoltan for the heads-up).

The ToR states that the service provider has to have ArcGIS. I asked for this requirement to be removed since it does not matter what software the service provider uses as long as they deliver the result. The response from DHA was that Govt has a ’transversal ESRI licence’ and that all Govt departments have to use ESRI! Never mind that this is completely contrary to the FOSS policy agreed to by Cabinet in 2007 and against SITA procurement policy, if it even is true that Govt is ‘has to’ use ESRI that does NOT mean service providers have to. Nevertheless I got a vocal support from other attendees as this requirement is ridiculous and exclusionary. 

DHA went further to say they want service providers to use ArcGIS so they don’t end up with issues using the data that service providers deliver. They are confusing software with data and don’t seem to be aware (or are so brainwashed) that most formats produced by most GIS software these days are completely interoperable. Furthermore they are unaware of and indeed flouting the MIOS (SA Govt Minimum Interoperability Standards).

Even worse and quite nonsensical is this formal response from DHA to all attendees of the briefing session:

*	Relating to SITA circular 1 of 2017/18 and National Treasury SCM circular 3 of 2017/8, it is a requirement that all Government departments make use of ESRI South Africa for software and therefore the format required will be in Arc GIS format.

Firstly there is no such thing as ‘Arc GIS format’. Secondly this is blatantly incorrect (and illegal if it is true). Lastly, can anyone enlighten the list as to the contents of the two circulars mentioned and whether they even support this argument?

Your thoughts? Anyone willing to take action?

regards

Gavin

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