Free State defends online project

"In total, 38 re-engineered websites form part of this project, including the provincial government's use of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter," said spokesman Mondli Mvambi.

The project included websites for the 11 provincial departments, three provincial public entities and 24 municipalities.

Mvambi was reacting to reports that the Free State government was paying R40m for the development of a government website. He said the total project of 38 websites cost R24m in the 2011/2012 finance year, and would cost R23.8m in the 2012/13 finance year.

Since the start of the project in 2011, the Free State premier's department had financed about R14.8m the project. This formed part of the R23.8m budgeted for current financial year.

"This expenditure has been audited by the Auditor General's office," said Mvambi. "The premier's department obtained an unqualified audit, for the previous 2011/2012 financial year."

The State Information and Technology Agency (Sita) was responsible for the hosting and security of the websites in the project.

The consortium of Cherry-Online-Ikamva-Jugganaut, in association with various community radio stations, had been appointed to deal with design, research, content development and generation in the first phase of the project. The second phase would bring community radio stations to provide continuous content development, updating and broadcasting of news and activities.

The three-year tender was published in the provincial tender bulletin last year.

Mvambi said the project had experienced two server crashes resulting in the loss of information and the loss of about 20,000 approved documents.

He said all provincial departments and entities with websites had to comply with Treasury instructions on the information posted it and with the legislative prescripts contained in the Municipal Finance Management Act.

Source: Sapa via I-Net Bridge