When there is a lot of money involved there is always serious interest. No exception to this rule is the tender to build e-government worth BGN15.5 million without VAT. Lobbies and party ties in various departments, experience in previous procedures, association with other companies – all this has been employed for the benefit of the goal to win some of the millions that government will give on the project.
The procedure itself was announced by the Ministry of Transport and Communications in November last year. It was divided into five lots, and one company can win only one lot. Last week the names of the contenders were finally announced.
Although the appointed committee will have to decide on the winners within 35 days, as of now it is nearly 100% clear who gets the first lot entitled Analysis, identification and recording of primary data controllers and their service records of e-government. The reason is that for the BGN2.5 million provided for this action only one consortium has applied: Ciela GT amp; KDZZD. It includes Ciela Norma JSC and the law firm Georgiev, Todorov amp; Co.. The first company in the group is owned by the U.S. Washington Publishing Group International and Veselin Todorov. It has already developed an e-government project in Stara Zagora in 2010 as part of consortium Electronic Government. It won a contract for BGN1,747,747 out of the total BGN2,450,000 EUR provided for the entire project under the Administrative Capacity Operational Programme. In 2009 Ciela contracted another BGN1,360,800 with the then Ministry of State Administration and Administrative Reform Support for providing support and maintenanve for legal bases and geographic information bases of the integration system for e-government.
Much more competitive is the second position
– Implementation of priority for central government e-services such as filing of tax returns over the Internet. It is for BGN3.75 million and has attracted five bidders.
These are Technologica EAD and Aytos IT Solutions and Services EOOD as single players as well as the consortia Intrasoft-BN, which includes the registered in Luxembourg limited company Intrasoft International AD (70%) and BN Group Ltd. (30%).
No less attention has been shown to the third lot: Implementation of priority administrative services of the municipal administration, which is for 3.35 million. The only candidate for single player is Acsior which many believe is the favourite.
Just 4.4 million will be spent on Development of a reference model architecture for the central government and municipal administrations. For this task contestants were four, and the biggest name among them is Hewlett- Packard Bulgaria with a subcontractor ComSoft LTD. A tender bid has been submitted by consortium Siensis-Abati, which includes Siensis JSC and Abati JSC.
To build a portal for e-services and completion of the e-government systems in its part of administrative services there are only two candidates who will fight for BGN1.5 million these are Stemo Ltd and IBS Bulgaria EOOD.
