While the process was competitive, it wasn't a "competition." There was a bidding process that several firms took part in.
That, and the end result can hardly be called good - maybe it is better, maybe not, hard to say even that, but definitely not good, unfortunately.
Yeah, I don't send people there anymore, sadly.
I'd like to add that I am the go-to person in my department (of 50 people) for all things python. I had a guy (a data scientist) ask me how to install and use python on his machine in the past hour...