Recruitment of Consultant for Billing Verification System for Mobile Services in The Gambia — Project P166695

REQUEST FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST

Name of Project: The Gambia Fiscal Management Development Project (P166695)

Grant No.: IDA-V2740

Assignment Title: Recruitment of Consultant for the Acquisition of a Billing Verification System for Mobile Services in The Gambia

Reference No. GM-PPPPE-212606-CS-CQS

The Government of The Gambia has received a grant from the World Bank (IDA) to support the development of Broadband services in the Telecommunications/ICT sector in The Gambia. The IDA program caters for a number of consultancy studies and procurement of equipment to build the capacity of The Gambia Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA), the national multi-sector regulator. One of these relates to the purchase of a Billing Verification System tool.

Reporting to the consultant will report to the Director General of PURA, however, the Director of Economic Regulation (DER) and Director of Consumer Affairs (DCA) will be the interface between the consultant and the relevant stakeholders.

Objectives: The Authority has been receiving incessant complaints regarding billing issues, particularly as it pertains to mobile data services. To this end, the Authority has been trying to resolve these disputes on a case-by-case basis. However, it has become increasingly evident that with the lack of scientific support verification tool for live readings of Operator billing systems, it would be untenable to resolve these disputes.

Since the proliferation of Data Services for 3G and 4G, the Authority has been inundated with numerous complaints relating to billing anomalies. As it stands, the Authority does not have any automated process to ensure these complaints are verified in a thorough and scientific manner. The Verification system allows for test call generation and live cross-verification of CDRs to address any anomalies and possible enforcement actions in the event of overages in billing for consumer protection. The system is intended to cover the whole gamut of services that include the monitoring and billing of Electronic communications, Promotions and Bundles for Voice, SMS and data services.

The detailed Terms of Reference (TOR) for the assignment are attached to this request for expressions of interest.

Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs (MoFEA) now invites eligible consulting firms (“Consultants”) to indicate their interest in providing the Services. Interested Consultants should provide information demonstrating that they have the required qualifications and relevant experience to perform the Services. The shortlisting criteria are:

FIRM QUALIFICATION AND EXPERIENCE

The supplying firm should have the following qualifications, experience, skills and knowledge:

• 10 Years’ experience in providing regulatory system solutions;

• Similarly executed projects within Africa and particularly with regulatory bodies

• At least 10 years’ experience in regulations of frequency spectrum management particularly in developing countries in Africa;

• Familiarity with ICT billing practices especially in voice and data communications;

• Post-Paid

• Pre-paid;

• Reference of similar works done for Public / Private Institutions with countries especially developing countries in Africa;

• The supplier must show proven ability to cope with technological developments and their evolution, i.e. 2G,3G, 4G, etc

• Automated reports must be generated at weekly, monthly intervals set by The Authority.

• Provide similar services to Governments, Operators and regulatory authorities.

The attention of interested Consultants is drawn to Section III, paragraphs, 3.14, 3.16, and 3.17 of the World Bank’s “Procurement Regulations for IPF Borrowers” July dated July 2016 and revised November 2017 and August 2018 (“Procurement Regulations”), setting forth the World Bank’s policy on conflict of interest.

Consultants may associate with other firms in the form of a joint venture or a sub consultancy to enhance their qualifications.

A Consultant will be selected in accordance with the Consultant Qualification Selection (CQS) method set out in the Consultant Guidelines.

Further information can be obtained at the address below during office hours from 09:00 to 16:00.

Expressions of interest must be delivered in a written form to the address below (in person, or by mail, or by e-mail) by close of business 9th March 2021.

Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA)

94, Kairaba Avenue, P.O.Box 4230 Bakau

The Gambia

Telephone: (+220) 4399601 / 4399606

E-mail: [email protected] , [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] , [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

TERMS OF REFERENCE

• Introduction

The Authority has been receiving incessant complaints regarding billing issues, particularly as it pertains to mobile data services. To this end, the Authority has been trying to resolve these disputes on a case-by-case basis. However, it has become increasingly evident that with the lack of scientific support verification tool for live readings of Operator billing systems, it would be untenable to resolve these disputes.

Notwithstanding, the IC ACT gives the Authority significant latitude on billing procedures and tariff principles as per the following sections under the functions of the Authority:

Section 9 (2)(c)(vii) – competition and consumer protection rules, billing procedures and billing accuracy;

Section 9 (o) – elaborate and, if necessary, revise the accounting requirements specific for the sector and tariff principles to be used by operators and service providers;

Evidently, it is clear that PURA seems to have jurisdiction to look at various options regarding the billing practices of operators especially considering the eminent consumer protection role the Authority has.

PURA recognizes the great need to protect consumers against abuses to billing in the telecommunications market as well as providing various mechanisms and guarantees to ensure consumer protection in an increasingly competitive market environment. At a minimum, operators do provide feedback upon the completion of each call on credit usage. However, the information provided is quite scanty and still does not give the Authority adequate visibility over the billing practices of MNO’s.

In this regard, the Authority intends to acquire and implement a solution aimed to address issues of tariff usage particularly across voice, data and SMS platforms which is two pronged in that it attempts to protect consumers from over-billing and operators from under-billing.

• SCOPE

The purpose of this TOR is to detail the minimum requirements needed to ensure the aims and objects of the Authority as per the billing verification system are adequately addressed.

• The system is intended to cover a whole gamut of services that include the monitoring and billing of Electronic communications, Promotions and Bundles for Voice, SMS and data services;

• The system should be designed to ensure programmed tariffs can be entered by PURA staff to ensure the veracity of claims by Operators;

• The system should contain sufficient storage for tracking, storing and archiving billing test records for a period of 6 months;

• Provide training for PURA staff who will be responsible for the management of the solution;

• Provision of relevant hardware for the system;

• Warranty for the solution and any other components.

• Solution Overview

• It should have enough capacity to load atleast 5 SIM cards from each of the GSM operators (4 Operators);

• The system should have the ability to program more than one SIM card at any given point in time;

• Must be compatible with all technological deployments (2G, 3G and 4G); Prepaid/Postpaid

• Must have features to enable PURA staff to input the relevant details to monitor any service or promotions;

• Duration of Calls (Voice) – Local/International, On-Net/Off-Net on a per second basis

• Internet Sessions (Data) – to start from a per kb session

• SMS sent (Voice) Local/International, On-Net/Off-Net

• Premium Number Short Codes;

• Roaming

• Automatically generate reports at the end of each test session with friendly and easily understandable graphic interface;

• The system must be able to deal with complex tariff bundles;

• The solution must be capable of monitoring bandwidth throttling activities on data sessions by MNO’s and monitor adherence to advertised speeds;

• Identification of leakages for underbilling by operators;

• The supplier shall ensure service continuity and ensure adequate redundancy strategies are in place;

• The system should be capable to export raw data call logs to excel and PDF format giving details of called numbers, duration, date and time stamps of the call. Same requirements are expected for data sessions.

• The hardware components of the system shall be hosted within PURA.

• Core Requirements for the System

• User Access Lists/Permissions – The solution should allow for configurable user access based on official PURA email ID’s.

• Reports – The reporting format and pre-defined reports will be defined between PURA and the selected vendor prior to implementation;

• Web Access / Interface – The solution should be web-based with the requisite security protocols built-in. It must be accessible and usable through a standard web browser with support for mobile devices.

• System Audit Log – All actions should be registered in an audit log along with a relevant timestamp, the user and the action implemented.

• Availability – The system shall be designed for continuous availability and operations.

• Data Ownership – The data held by the system shall be at all times owned by The Authority. The database shall not be used by unauthorized parties and shall not be sold to other parties.

• Training and Documentation

• The successful bidder shall provide the ne