keep-the-receipts / keepthereceipts-frontend Goto Github PK

During the dataquest, someone could explore whether additional features can be added to Keep the Receipts. Once I look at procurement data, what I do thereafter is to go do a company and director search. I use either Windeeds or Legal City to do so. These are paid accounts. In theory, CIPC should be offering this search functionality. Windeeds and LegalCity draw on CIPC data. I think one wants to explain to the user that this is how you explore procurement data further. It would be pretty amazing to have a prefilled search - for example, imagine that you see Beadica 423 has received a very large contract and you want to search the company report for it - the registration number for Beadica 423 prefills into Windeeds or LegalCity or CIPC search.

Personally I find Windeeds the best tool, but it is a paid service. CIPC is not so easy to use even though they have improved their tech, it's offline for routine maintenance and it's not even readily apparent that such searches are possible. It's only because I know that they sit on the data. I am suggesting that during the data quest, someone can explore the potential of this as a feature and write up notes on barriers and what would be necessary to achieve it.

(from K.P)

http://eservices.cipc.co.za/Customer_register_id.aspx
https://www.legalcity.net/

https://search.windeed.co.za/Company?menuSection=Person

(Versions of this query from various people including Steven K. Simon E., Zukiswa K and Kirsten P.)

the problem with the CIPC data is that it's just names. It doesn't allow you to build a real understanding of the people behind them, so it's hard to quickly see red flags. For instance you can't see that a director of a company is also a state employee easily unless you google them or use OSINT tools. But searching like this is one director at a time and very time consuming. A way around this would be amazing (BTW, it used to be possible to use pipl.com for free which linked public profiles from LinkedIn and Facebook. It would quickly help to get a sense of who someone was. A little dodgy and like Cambridge Analytica. But the concept was excellent.)

..... even if you can find the details of the company and its directors, it's still hard to find their contact details to follow up with them. The problem with many tender companies is that they don't have public profiles so you cant find their emails etc to ask them about what they are doing. It's harder to get around this. I use multiple sources. Some are subscription services. But sometimes I can find their details online on government documents, such as pdf extracts from the central supplier database which are sitting on the net, or contacts listed in the awarded tenders portal of the etenders platform. The KZN finance department also once had a supplier portal that you could search for contact details (see here:http://www.kzntreasury.gov.za/SitePages/KwaZulu-Natal%20Treasury%20-%20Suppliers%20Database.aspx)

e.g.

• R123.45
• R123.5 thousand
• R123.5 million

When I am exploring the procurement data, what I often want to know is whether the department advertised the tender in the Government Gazette and what the Terms of Reference actually said. That is how you find out if the tender was rigged for example by using very narrow specifications. So, in Keep the Receipts, if you have a feature that directs the user to do a search in OpenGazettes, it would be pretty neat. You could get someone to write up the requirements for such a feature. @jbothma

(K.P)

Include an example somewhere - perhaps linked from the footer.