Instances of fraudulent acts are often headline news in the popular press in South Africa. Increasingly, these press reports point to the government tender process as being the main enabler used by the perpetrators committing the fraud. The cause of the tender fraud problem is confidentiality breach of information. This is accomplished, in part, by compromising the tender information contained in the government information system. This results in the biased award of a tender. Typically, the information in the tender process should be used to make decisions about a tender’s specifications, solicitation, evaluation and adjudication. The sharing of said information to unauthorised persons can be used to manipulate and corrupt the process. This in turn corrupts the tender process by awarding a tender to an unworthy recipient. This research studies the generic steps in the tender process to understand how information is used to corrupt the tender process. It proposes that conflict of interest, together with a lack of information confidentiality in the information system, paves the way for possible tender fraud. Thereafter, a system of internal controls is examined within the South African government as well as in foreign countries to investigate measures taken to reduce the breach of confidential information in the tender process. By referring to the Common Criteria Security Model, various critical security areas within the tender process are identified. This measure is assisted with the ISO/IEC 27002 (2005) standard which has guiding principles for the management of confidential information. Thereafter, an information security policy,the Chinese Wall Model will be discussed as a means of reducing instances where conflict of interest may occur. Finally, an adapted Chinese Wall Model, which includes elements of the tender process, is presented as a way of reducing fraud in the government tender process. Finally, the research objective of this study is presented in the form of Critical Success Factors that aid in reducing the breach of confidential information in the tender process. As a consequence, tender fraud is reduced. These success factors have a direct and serious impact on the effectiveness of the Chinese Wall Model to secure the confidentiality of tender information. The proposed Critical Success Factors include: the Sanitisation Policy Document, an Electronic Document Management System, the Tender Evaluation Ethics Document, the Audit Trail Log and the Chinese Wall Model Prosecution Register.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ufh/vital:11136 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Rama, Sobhana |
| Publisher | University of Fort Hare, Faculty of Management & Commerce |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Masters, MCom (Information Systems) |
| Format | 165 leaves, pdf |
| Rights | University of Fort Hare |
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