Tripped up by a procedural snag in the tender process to find an IT consultant that would be responsible for drawing up the country’s master information communication technology (ICT) plan, the final phase of awarding the project to one of the five contending companies has been suspended.

In August 2006, the Ethiopian Information Communication Technology Development Agency (EICTDA) issued a call for expressions of interest to be submitted by IT consultancy firms that will be responsible to draw out a master plan that paves the way for the government’s desire to install a nationwide network connecting all federal offices.

In response, three local companies, MAT Electrotechnical, BIS and National IT Solutions submitted their interests along with four international companies - Telecom Finland; EQ Telecom from the Netherlands; Huaxin China and TCIN India.
 

After the expressions of interest, the Agency qualified all the IT companies to the next level of technical bids, but two of the seven companies, Huaxin and MAT Electrotechnical, did not attend the opening date for technical offers.
 

Sources told Fortune that on October 2, 2006, the Agency opened the technical offers submitted by the remaining five companies and after a week informed all contenders to attend the opening of their financial offers on October 13; but the date of opening was postponed due to complaints made by some applicants.  Abey Tessema, ICT program coordinator at the Agency said that the date for opening has been indefinitely postponed.
 

The complaints were from companies demanding that they be told their scores from the technical offer before the opening of their financial offers.
 

According to the tender specifications, the only parties to be involved in the financial offer are those that have scored the highest in the technical portion. On Friday, the Agency was going to open all five applicant’s financial offers, but the procedure was suspended due to the objections.

The financing for the ICT master plan was secured from a 1.2 million Br loan from the World Bank. The entire federal government offices’ interconnection project will cost close to 12 million dollars according to sources from the Ministry of Capacity Building. 
 

The preparation of the master plan is one part of the Public Sector Capacity Building Program (PSCP), which also encompasses the Tax Reform Program and Court Reform Program. All three programs are overseen by the Ministry of Capacity Building.
 

Although EICTDA was formed under the Ministry as an authority, it was re-established into an Agency in 2005. Through the Agency leadership, it will also establish an ICT technology pack in Addis Abeba covering an area of about 200,000sqm that is to be allotted by the Ethiopian Government.
 

EICTDA has already commissioned the Addis Abeba University to coin ICT terminology in major Ethiopian languages, such as in Amharic, Oromiffa and Tigrigna, followed by other local languages.

“Considering the fact that Ethiopia has been backwards when it comes to technology, the fact that the government has focused on ICT is truly something to be appreciated,” an owner of an IT company told Fortune.