A total of 38 websites, and not only one, form part of the Free State’s multi-year integrated website project, the provincial government said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
“In total, 38 re-engineered websites form part of this project, including the provincial government’s utilisation of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter,” said spokesman Mondli Mvambi.<\/p>\n
The project included websites for the 11 provincial departments, three provincial public entities and 24 municipalities.<\/p>\n
Mvambi was reacting to reports that the Free State government was paying R40 million for the development of a government website.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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 in the 2012\/2013 book year.<\/p>\n
This expenditure had audited by the Office of the Auditor General, said Mvambi.<\/p>\n
“The premier’s department obtained an unqualified audit, also known as a clean audit, for the 2011\/2012 financial year.”<\/p>\n
The State Information and Technology Agency (Sita) was responsible for the hosting and security of the websites in the project.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The second phase would bring community radio stations on board with continuous content development, and updating and broadcasting of news and activities.<\/p>\n
The three-year tender award was published in the provincial tender bulletin of February 24, 2012.<\/p>\n
Mvambi said the project had experienced two major setbacks.<\/p>\n
The Sita servers crashed in October and again two weeks ago, resulting in the loss of a lot of information. The project involved 20,000 approved documents.<\/p>\n
Mvambi said the project was now in the final phase, involving a review of the websites of the 24 municipalities.<\/p>\n
The province said the Free State government and municipalities’ online presence was fragmented, outdated and cluttered with irrelevant information before 2011.<\/p>\n
The project was aimed at not only improving this, but at addressing legislative and regulatory compliance aspects of departments, entities and municipalities.<\/p>\n
Mvambi said provincial departments and entities had to comply with Treasury instructions on the information to be posted on a website.<\/p>\n
Municipalities also had to comply with legislative prescripts in the Municipal Finance Management Act about the running of a website.<\/p>\n
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