An article in itnews reports on a public inquiry over a ballooning IT project that tallied in at over $1 billion after an allegedly biased bidding process:
Casual approach
The first week of the inquiry heard of the casual approach taken with the initial request for proposal, which was emailed to vendors IBM, Accenture, SAP and Logica.
The decision by Burns to email vendors was viewed as so casual it led to Accenture asking for clarification if any work would be awarded at the end of the process.
It was assured it would be, but Treasury later sought legal advice on the issue and eventually issued a more formal Invitation to Offer.
Uneven playing field
Competition between vendors for major government contracts is normal. And throughout the inquiry CorpTech executives and contractors were at pains to point out they wanted to encourage such competition.
Unfortunately that was significantly undermined when IBM was able to undertake a “dry run” of its presentation. This, together with the leaking of a competitive bid and alleged altering of scoring in the final evaluation of bids, made government procurement policies appear pointless
The story also goes on to note that long term contractors started to conduct themselves like employees, making use of confidential government records.
