Spotlight: The woes of Paraguay's government datacenter auction process

The Paraguayan government's datacenter project is struggling after a first tender was cancelled while controversy surrounds transparency in the ongoing second attempt. 

In September, ICT ministry Mitic received four offers in the tender for the design, construction, comprehensive equipping and commissioning of a tier 3 datacenter for the government, but no award has been made yet.

The government said the process is in the evaluation phase. 

Financed by IDB as part of a US$130mn digital agenda support program, the 143-bn guaraní (US$17.8mn) datacenter will be located on the Falcón Clorinda route in Villa Hayes north of capital Asunción and will have a total area of 7,489m2. 

The initial design capacity includes 110 racks for IT services and 58 for network and telecommunications equipment. It will have capacity of 5MW.

The first tender process was cancelled in 2023 due to low participation of bidders and complaints about conflicts of interest. 

Even though the government said the process attracted interest from eight firms, only four submitted offers, according to tender documents.

The bids were from consortiums ITC-Tecnoville (193bn guaraníes), Infraestructura Tecnológica (US$25.5mn), Comtec Tecnológico (US$13.1mn plus 40.4bn guaraníes) and Compre F Data (US$21.8mn).

Controversy

Last week, information and communication technologies minister Gustavo Villate reaffirmed the government's commitment to transparency after local media reported suspicions of manipulation of the process and opposition senator José Oviedo called for an investigation regarding the execution of international financing. 

"There was no type of omission in the information. The law that governs the process stipulates that confidentiality begins at the launch, and all information regarding the presentation of documents must be subsequently analyzed by the evaluation committee," Villate told a press conference on Friday.

The official also reported that a complaint has been filed with the national procurement board (DNCP) and state audit office regarding "attempts at interference and harassment of a sector whose interests would be affected by the decisions we have adopted as a government."

"I think this is a war in the sense that one of our guys probably doesn't have the best offer and wants to win," Pedro Yambay from the Paraguayan software chamber told newspaper La Nación.

Consultancy tender

In December, a new consultancy tender for project management and supervision of the datacenter contract was published. 

Offers in the 8.7bn-guaraní process are due March 10^.

The tender is closed and only eight pre-selected consulting firms may participate.

The consultants are Chile's CDLEC consortium, Uruguay's CSI consortium, Spain's Typsa-all-Datacenter, Bolivia's CTL consortium and Paraguay's ICTEC Ingenium, Consultora de Ingeniería Alto Paraguay/Cialpa, Consorcio Consultor Partech and the IMA consortium.