ICT Hardware and Software Acquisition
- Submission of annual ICT procurement plan to RISA
- ICT centralized procurement
- Decentralized ICT tenders
- Development vs acquisition of software
- Minimum requirements to determine the best solution
- Internet bandwidth procurement
- Procurement of hosting and cloud services
Submission of annual ICT procurement plan to RISA
- ICT procurement plans: all government institutions should consolidate and share with RISA at centralizedprocurement@risa.gov.rw their ICT procurement plans on yearly basis in accordance to the government planning cycle. RISA compiles and harmonizes submitted ICT procurement plans to establish a single national ICT procurement plan. The national ICT procurement plan is shared back to all government entities.
References: Ministerial Instructions of N0. 001/MINICT/2012 12/03/2012 and
RISA’s letter Ref: RISA/CEO/420/17.
ICT centralized procurement
- Centralized hardware procurement
− On yearly basis, RISA selects commonly procured ICT items from submitted institutional ICT procurement plans.
− RISA sets technical specifications based on government needs and technology
trend.
− RISA initiates annual centralized tender of the above commonly procured ICT
items.
− RISA signs annual framework contracts based on unit prices and share them with all government entities.
− Government entities issue purchase orders to selected bidders for acquisition of
needed items.
− Other ICT items that are not part of the centralized framework contracts, should be procured using the normal procurement process at institutions’ level and RISA should be involves for technical support and advice.
− Government entities that want to procure ICT items that are part of the centralized framework contracts but with different specifications should seek approval from RISA.
- Centralized software procurement
The procurement of all commonly procured Application Software and System Software across the government should be done through a centralized framework process at RISA.
− All application software across the government shall be acquired in line with the principles of information sharing, compatibility, unified support, cost- effectiveness, improved staff productivity and user satisfaction.
− Government institutions should seek RISA’s approval before embarking on major
application software acquisition.
− In order to minimize unnecessary redundancies and to avoid duplications, RISA shall confirm that there is no already existing application software within government that can provide equivalent functions and that can be replicated.
− In the same line and to the extent possible:
o Multi-tenancy application software shall be privileged to allow sharing of development and maintenance costs.
o Multi-tenancy application software shall be either centrally procured through
RISA or procured with participation and close supervision of RISA.
o Government institutions shall to the extent possible, adhere to the use of open standards.
Decentralized ICT tenders
- Procurement process: institutions should obtain approval from RISA to initiate any
ICT procurement process - Relevance of the hardware/software item: RISA shall confirm the to be acquired based on submitted ICT gap analysis and ICT gap bridging roadmap in reference to the section 8 on institution “ICT strategic plan”)
- Validation of drafted terms of reference (ToR)/ requirements: Government
institutions are advised to collaborate with RISA on ToR’s development before publication of ICT tenders. Institutions can request RISA’s participation at any stage of the tender evaluation of ICT tenders.
Development vs acquisition of software
- Decision to acquire or develop the software: government institutions should seek advice from RISA about the acquiring or developing the software.
The below criteria should be based on in order to take a decision between acquisition and
development: - Government institution can go for development in case:
− Requirements are very specific and cannot be found on the market;
− Commercial solutions have prohibitive prices;
− Commercial solutions’ vendors do not supply source codes;
− The support is critical and it is not to be provided by a vendors; and
− The institution should have and ensure the development and software maintenance capabilities are available in house or locally by Rwandan companies.
- Government institution can go for acquisition in case:
− The software is readily and cheaply available on the market;
− The delivery time is critically short; or
− The software reliability is very critical.
Minimum requirements to determine the best solution
- Total lifecycle cost: including initial cost, installation, training, and recurrent cost for maintenance and support.
- Maintainability: the ease of how (cost and effort) the software can be modified to
correct faults, improve performance or other attribute or adapt to a changed environment. - Interoperability: ihis includes additional support required to integrate with existing systems. It also includes flexibility to accommodate changes over time and among multiple systems.
- Portability: usability of the same software in different environments. A computer environment can include hardware, operating systems, and interfaces with other software, users and programmers.
- Scalability: ability to support future growth and increased through put.
- Availability and accessibility: robust and redundant (fault tolerant) software to achieve required level of service without disruption from software failure.
- Reusability: ability to make repeated use of the software for additional requirements with minimum additional cost.
- Functionality/performance: ability to achieve operational requirements effectively and efficiently.
- Security: ability to protect system data and operational environment from loss or compromise.
- Additional criteria include: vendor viability, licensing restrictions, product market share, customer recommendations, frequency of upgrades, and potential obsolescence.
Internet bandwidth procurement
- Internet services: government institutions should source all their internet services (4G internet and Fiber Internet connection) needs through the established framework as per the March 2012 ministerial instructions. (See annex)
- Bandwidth capacity to be purchases: bandwidth shall be decided based on the requirements of the intended user and usage purpose as detailed in section 3.1
Procurement of hosting and cloud services
Hosting and cloud services: government institutions should source all their hosting needs through the established framework asper the March 2012 ministerial instructions.
Government entities sign individual contracts with the provider and a sample contracts as well as sample Service Level Agreements are shared by RISA. Any contract management issue which persists should be automatically escalated to RISA for resolution.