The Department of Communications spells out its 112 contact centre plans South Africans will be able to dial 112 for all emergency calls anywhere in the country by the end of next year, says the Department of Communications (DOC), which is setting up two Public Emergency Contact Centres (PECCs) for that purpose.

There are more than 350 emergency centres handling calls and dispatching for the various police, ambulance, and fire-fighting services.

"The result is that South Africans have to know the telephone numbers of every emergency service provider in the country in the event of a specific emergency," says DOC spokesman Albi Modise. "The new 112 emergency service will integrate all the services on one number, thereby allowing for a single entry in emergency situations, irrespective of the nature of the emergency.

"The number is also easy to dial for people with disabilities as the numbers 1-1-2 are close to each other."

TENDER PROCESS

The PECCs will be run as a public private partnership (PPP) and the DOC intends to appoint a private partner for the financing, design, management, maintenance and operating of the centres on behalf of the government.

"The tender process, which is regulated in terms of the requirements of the National Treasury, is on track and the department hopes to appoint the successful bidder in the third quarter of this year," adds Modise.

"At present the department is finalising the first phase of the PPP tender process h is a request for qualifications - which closed on 29 February. This process allows companies bidding to be part of the PPP to indicate their understanding of a 112 centre as well as their understanding of how best to ensure that the centre succeeds in delivering an efficient service to South Africans.

"Based on their experience, understanding of what needs to be done, their empowerment credentials and equity structure, short listed companies will move to the request for proposal (RFP) phase," Modise says.

"The RFP phase will seek to identify the technical specifications, hardware and software to be used. The DOC will be interfacing with the various operators (mobile and fixed), police, emergency medical services on the technical specifications and inputs into the process."

The end result will be that 112 PECC agents will be able to direct calls to the relevant emergency services - irrespective of where they are in the country.

He cautions, however, that private emergency centres are not part of the 112 PECC programme "as they offer revenue based emergency services".

BIDDERS

The RFP will likely be fiercely contested as all the big names in the industry attended a briefing session on the subject in Cape Town last month.

Among the companies biding are Saab Grintek, Satyam Computer Services and Continuity SA. Saab Grintek is keen to propose a solution based on the technology its mother company delivered to the Swedish Rescue Services Agency. The solution would include training and assistance from the Nordic agency. Satyam Computer Services has proposed a non-profit PPP based on the Emergency Management and Research Institute (EMRI), in Hyderabad, in India`s populous Andhra Pradesh province. EMRI`s single contact centre handles all emergency and police calls for a population in excess of 80 million people.

EMRI receives over 13 000 calls a day, 85% of which are answered in two rings. The average time taken from call receipt to delivering a patient to hospital is just 34 minutes.

ContinuitySA is host to Gauteng`s Provincial Disaster Management Centre and the Gauteng Health Department`s Emergency Medical Control Centre that dispatches and controls the region`s ambulances. The two centres, opened by Premier Mbhazima Shilowa in November, cost the province R50 million.

Apparently absent from the list is Altech, which last year built the Gauteng police a state-of-the-art R600 million contact and radio control (CRC) centre, in Midrand, fitted with the Terrestrial Trunked Radio (Tetra) system. Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula last year said every province would eventually have a Tetra-based CRC centre.