GOVERNMENT OF TONGA
MINISTRY OF REVENUE & CUSTOMS
REQUEST FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST
(CONSULTING SERVICES)
Assignment Title: Consulting services for implementation of TaxCore as a new ESRS software solution.
Reference No.: MORC-05/2025-26
The Contracting Entity acting on behalf of the Ministry of Revenue & Customs has received funding from the Recurrent funding and intends to apply part of the proceeds for the following consulting services.
The consulting services (“the Services”) including carrying out tasks as a consulting service for implementation of Tax Core as a new ESRS software solution.
The Contracting Entity 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 minimum qualifications and relevant experience to perform the Services.
The short-listing criteria are:
1. Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Information system’s computer science, software engineering or related discipline.
- Postgraduate qualification in ICT, Public Finance, or Tax Administration (advantage).
- Professional certifications in enterprise systems (Oracle, SAP, Microsoft Dynamic, or equivalent.
- Project management credentials( PMP, PRINCE2, Agile/Scrum).
- Cybersecurity/data governance certifications (ISO 27001, CISA, or equivalent desirable).
2. Experience
- Minimum 5 year’s experience in public sector systems.
- At least 2 successful deployments of financial/government systems in Pacific SIDS or other remote regions.
- References from tax authorities.
- Demonstrated understanding of Tonga’s tax laws and regulatory environment.
3. Technical capabilities
- Fiscal Device Expertise: tamper-proof systems, real-time transaction monitoring offline-to-online synchronization.
- Advanced Anti-Fraud Features: ESS detection/prevention, cryptographic receipt signing (OR codes, blockchain audit trails), automated suspicious transaction monitoring, offline-to-online synchronization.
- Advanced Anti-Fraud Features: ESS detection/prevention, cryptographic receipt signing (OR codes, blockchain audit trails), automated suspicious transaction flags.
- Interoperability: API-ready architecture for integration with MORC’s Tax Management System.
- Ability to export fiscal data in XML/JSON format as per MORC- Tonga’s schema.
- Solution must support offline fiscal memory (minimum 12 months transaction storage).
4. Implementation & Change Management
- Project Management: Hybrid Agile (development) + PRINCE2 (governance), stage-gate approvals.
- Training & Change Management: Train-the-Trainer plan, SME onboarding support.
5. Compliance, Security & Legal Access
- Ent-to-end encryption for date in transit and at rest, with keys escrowed to MORC-Tonga.
- Certifications in data security/system governance.
- Disaster recovery and business continuity planning.
- Disaster recovery and business continuity planning.
- Data sovereignty compliance: all transaction data for Tongan tax payers must be hosted within Tonga or approved sovereign cloud.
- Commitment that the system will not use proprietary encryption that prevents Morc-Tonga form real-time, read-only access to transaction data.
- No contractual clauses restricting tax audit access to servers, logs, or source code (If hosted off-shore).
- Signed Anti-tampering declaration affirming MORC section 45 rights (full access to premises, records, electronic storage, password, and decryption keys at any time without noticer).
6. Service & Support
- Structured post-implementation support and maintenance.
- SLA commitments for uptime, update, and troubleshooting.
- Guaranteed 99.5% uptime for central server.
- Local technical support presence in Tonga (staff or authorized partner) with <4 hour> response time.
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 Quality and cost-based selection (QCBS) method set out in the Public Procurement Regulations.
Further information can be obtained at the address below during office hours 8:30am to 4:30pm.
Expressions of interest must be delivered in a written form to the address below in person by 1200 noon on 1st May 2026.
Mrs Seiloima Fakatoka
Central Procurement Unit of the Ministry of Finance
St. George Government Building Ground Floor
Taufa’ahau/Vuna Road
Nuku’alofa, Tonga
Telephone: 7400728
Email: sfakatoka [at] finance [dot] gov [dot] to
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