Question NW1383 to the Minister of Social Development
03 September 2020 - NW1383
Breedt, Ms T to ask the Minister of Social Development
(1)Whether her department awarded any tenders in relation to the Social Relief of Distress Grant; if so, what (a) are the names of the businesses and/or service providers to whom the specified tenders were awarded, (b) are the amounts of each tender awarded and (c) was the service and/or product to be supplied by each business and/or service provider; (2) whether standard procurement processes were followed; if not, why not; if so, what was the reason for each specified business and/or service provider to be awarded the specified tender; (3) whether her department awarded any tenders in relation to capacity increase on existing grant infrastructure; if so, what (a) are the names of the businesses and/or service providers to whom these tenders were awarded, (b) are the amounts of each tender awarded, (c) was the service and/or product to be supplied by each business and/or service provider; (4) whether the standard procurement processes were followed; if not, why not; (5) what was the reason for each specified business and/or service provider to be awarded the specified tender? NW1754E
Reply:
1. (a) No tender was awarded
(b) Not applicable
(c) Not applicable
2. Not applicable
3. (a) Tenders were awarded to Prosense, Vodacom and Govchat.
3. (b)
- SASSA varied Prosense’s existing contract with R2, 9 million.
- Vodacom was awarded R15 million for thetender through the existing National Treasury RT15 contract (RT15 is a Government Transversal contract to Supply and deliver mobile communication services to the State during the lockdown period 27 March to 16 April 2020)
- Govchat services are rendered for free to SASSA
4. Yes, the standard procurement processes were followed.
5. - Prosense was appointed to build the APIS(Application Programming Interface system)for data validation and to develop website for Special SRD Grant (Social Relief of Distress Grant)
- Vodacom was appointed to develop USSD platform (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data)for SRD Applications
- Govchat was appointed to develop the Special SRD Application Platform for free