ATO downplays Lockheed deal cost

$380 million mistakenly advertised due to "administrative error"

The Australian Taxation Office has clarified that its five-year desktop services contract with defence giant and IT contractor Lockheed Martin actually has a total pricetag of $283.4 million -- not the $380 million it mistakenly published through the Government's tendering system.

The ATO had initially estimated the value of the contract at $60 million a year, which is why the $380 million figure surprised some in the industry when it was published through the AusTender system in late September.

"Due to administrative error the contract value was incorrectly published on Austender and will be updated later today to identify the combined total value of the two ATO End User Computing Services related contracts, being End User Technology and Support (EUTS) and Enterprise Service Management Centre (ESMC), is $283,428,952 over the 5 year initial term," said an ATO spokesperson late last week.

The $283 million figure is about 5.5 percent lower than the ATO's initial estimate of $60 million a year - not $16 million a year higher as had initially been published.

The ATO’s contract was hard fought, with Lockheed beating out a number of traditional IT services firms to win the deal, including big names such as CSC — which was a finalist, incumbent HP Enterprise Services, KAZ (now part of Fujitsu) and Unisys.

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Tags ATOtenderslockheed martinAustralian Tax Officedesktop services contract

More about Australian Taxation OfficeCSC AustraliaFujitsuHewlett-Packard AustraliaHPLockheed MartinSMCUnisys AustraliaUTS

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