South Africa’s National Treasury on Friday reissued its amended request for proposal (RFP) for the five-year multibillion-rand project to replace the legacy systems currently in use with an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution for an integrated financial management system (IFMS).

Tier 1 ERP original software manufacturers were requested to bid for the provision of Tier 1 ERP commercial-off-the-shelf (Cots) software, and the provision of ongoing upgrades and support, to be used during the workings of the South African public service.

Interested parties had until January 30 to respond and would be required to attend a compulsory briefing on December 5.

“In keeping with global trends, the South African government is continually improving the way it manages public resources through, inter alia, the regular refinement of financial management and human resource management policies and procedures,” accountant general Michael Sass said in a statement.

In March, Treasury had invited service providers to bid for the provision, lead site implementation, maintenance and support of the IFMS ERP system.

However, this was retracted after industry’s questions regarding response times and the identified lead sites, besides others, necessitated further engagements “to resolve all issues” that could potentially delay the project.

The South African public service currently owned and operated a large number of legacy ERP-related systems for its financial management, human resource, payroll, supply chain and business intelligence functions.

“A number of these systems were developed in the 1980s and it is becoming increasingly difficult to upgrade and maintain them. There are also some duplicated functionalities across the systems and there is a lack of interoperability and business intelligence services,” the tender document stated.

The implementation of the IFMS solution would resolve policy implementation constraints experienced owing to ageing and legacy systems, as well as support the frameworks of financial accountability, budgeting, appropriation, cash management, financial reporting, performance reporting and human resource management.

The revamped system would also accommodate ongoing financial management reforms and legislation, such as the Public Finance Management Act and the Public Service Act; improve decision-making through improved information and knowledge management; reduce the expenditure of maintaining ageing and fragmented/disparate systems; and achieve interoperability, security, economies of scale and elimination of duplicated information technology systems.

Sass said it would also improve productivity and service delivery by standardising and automating processes, reduce redundant and unnecessary tasks and activities and enhance operational effectiveness by improving the quality of data and making it available for use and sharing.