74 PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL • SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 processes on the African continent hence our research will focus on the outcomes of RFPs on this continent. Even though we do not refer to them, we know that similar outcomes are experienced elsewhere in the world. We also believe that African jurisdictions which are answering our call to update their ancient legal frameworks will seek a standard like the Global RFP when they start their operator selection process. For them, this is important. (2) When we started our research, we knew that a review may be difficult because of the veil of confidentiality that is pulled over RFP processes. Fortunately, we found on the internet reports that provide reasons for and reviews of RFP outcomes. Legal reviews of the outcomes of RFP processes provided an invaluable insight into the successes and shortcomings of previous RFPs. Lastly, we confirm that we do not evaluate or question the merits of any decisions made by an authorising authority. This is not the intention of this article. Botswana: After consulting the Global RFP, Botswana published an RFP (termed Request For Applications For the National Lottery License) on 8 May 2017. Applicants submitted their applications on 12 October 2017. This RFP confirmed that the RFP evaluations process will be concluded on 9 March 2018 and that the preferred applicant would be announced on 15 June 2018. The preferred applicant was not announced until 6 June 2020, nearly two years later. The first delay came because a bidder successfully interdicted the authority from continuing with the process. The bidder won the right to submit documents that were initially denied by the authority through an arbitration process that is provided for in the RFP. The arbitration process lasted two years and the initial sales predictions, committed financial resources and availability of technology partners became an issue. But the wait for their own national lottery is not over for the Batswana people. Contract negotiations with the preferred bidder could only commence six months after the announcement because of legal challenges launched by the reserve applicant because key RFP conditions and criteria were flaunted – rendering, in their opinion, the process illegal and irregular. To make matters worse, in April 2021 the issuing authority announced that the preferred applicant did not have the funding required to launch the lottery. The authority commenced negotiations with the reserve applicant. There are still no lottery operations in Botswana. Tanzania: After what they believed to be a successful request for proposal (RFP) process based on the Global RFP, Tanzania announced an operator for their national lottery on 4 February 2015. The RFP required that the national lottery employ a retail network supported by a modern digital platform. On 22 May 2016 the national lottery started selling tickets on the digital platform only. The retail network was never implemented, the lottery failed to deliver revenue targets and grinded to a halt. Malawi: Lottery operations in Malawi stopped in 2012 because until then the efforts of the Malawian regulator to secure an operator was hampered by operators who pulled out before rollout or were unable to honour promises. Malawi consulted the Global RFP and published the invitation for tenders in May 2014. A preferred candidate was identified, and a license agreement was signed. But the national lottery was not launched because the operator could not secure the required funding to buy the promised lottery infrastructure. The Global RFP induced process also seems to have an inability to survive legal scrutiny. In fact, these RFPs seem to invite legal scrutiny and it will appear as if the process is so complex and detailed, that authorizing authorities find it difficult to stay within the boundaries of its own RFP process. South Africa: Although the authorising authority drafted the RFP following best practises set out in the Global RFP in 2006, the process did not survive legal scrutiny. The lottery was suspended for six months following a High Court decision that the authorising authority failed to implement a condition banning the involvement of political office bearers. Contributions to good causes and charities stopped and the lottery lost hard-earned market momentum against its closest competitors. In 2013, the RFP was extensively revised introducing and emphasizing corporate social responsibility aspects (most notably skills development and local content requirements) and providing for the inclusion of bid submissions on good causes contribution values and social responsibility plans as annexures to the intended license. Again, this process did not survive legal scrutiny and the license agreement signed with the preferred applicant was declared null and void because the signed license agreement deviated from the RFP and other legal standards. Again, it was the absence of the necessary financial resources at the time of signing the license agreement that led to the failure of the RFP process. The South African court decision highlighted (Botswana experienced the same) the plight of applicants in Africa. An applicant requires the signed license as collateral to secure the necessary funding and the authorizing authority requires the evidence of committed funding before they will issue the license. In both 2006 and 2014, the court ordered that the process be reviewed by the authorising authority. In both instances, the preferred applicants were allowed to mend the “deviances”, and both became the operators of the National Lottery. As South Africa made changes to their RFP document, so did they increase the timelines needed to complete the RFP process. For the first RFP published in 1998 it took ten months from RFP publication to signing the license, in 2006 it took one year and nine months, and in 2014, two years and two months to the conclusion of the valid license. A re-licensing process has an adverse impact on lottery operations and it is not ideal to allow for an extended period of time. Considering the above experiences in the listed jurisdictions, it leaves one perplexed on how these complex and detailed processes failed to review and confirm a critical requirement for a national lottery, being committed finances. United Kingdom: The latest RFP issued in the UK has captured the attention of the lottery world for the last two years and therefore their RFP should be considered in this discourse. Our research confirms that this RFP is very different from the Global RFP. The competition for the UK National Lottery (as they term their RFP process) introduces a separate Request For Information (RFI) process. The RFI is conducted by way of a selection questionnaire to identify Does the Global RFP still constitute best practice?
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