Russia’s Ministry of Regional Development is procuring the “implementation of measures aimed at creating the first phase of the federal state information system for territorial planning.” ** Starting contract price: 140 million rubles. Deadline: 109 days**. Here
This is a fairly specialized matter, and we need professional expert analysis of this tender. We have classified it as highly suspicious: The technical specifications are extremely vague. All functional characteristics are reduced to brief, general functional principles. The work includes: taking inventory of existing information systems (that means all information systems on the condition and use of territories under the authority of federal agencies, regional authorities, etc.) designing the future system (in essence, the contractor is defining the requirements for the system themselves: preparing the technical documentation, determining the types and volumes of information it should contain, and identifying the optimal system solutions for creating and operating it. They are even expected to prepare draft regulations for putting the system into operation) directly developing the software for the system’s first phase. And all of that in 109 days. So it is impossible to estimate the full scope of work and labor costs at the outset, because that can only be done after the inventory and the design of the future system have been completed. On top of that, the composition of the information resources and the list of the system’s functions will have to be clarified at the design stage. And those factors will radically affect the amount of work involved. Accordingly, there is an opinion that this tender was tailored for a specific company that had already carried out the inventory and prepared the design. The second possibility is that instead of building a “powerful geoinformation system,” which in theory could cost that much (or even more) but would take a couple of years to create, they will produce some kind of fake substitute without lowering the price. In any case, Minregion is on our risk list. After it emerged that these crooks brazenly, stupidly, and with very little shame stole $66 million from us through the purchase of their own building, we will treat all of their tenders with suspicion. If anyone can help with this issue (or has information about how this possible fraud is organized), please write to rospil2011 @ gmail com