Free State govt defends website project
2013-03-05 14:35
Bloemfontein - 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.
"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 spokesperson Mondli Mvambi.
The project included websites for the 11 provincial
departments, three provincial public entities and 24 municipalities.
Reports of R40m for website
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 financial year.
Since the start of the project in 2011, the Free State
premier’s department had financed about R14.8m of the project. This formed part
of the R23.8m budgeted for in the 2012/2013 book year.
This expenditure had audited by the Office of the Auditor
General, said Mvambi.
"The premier’s department obtained an unqualified
audit, also known as a clean audit, for the 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 on
board with continuous content development, and updating and broadcasting of
news and activities.
The three-year tender award was published in the provincial
tender bulletin of 24 February 2012.
Setbacks
Mvambi said the project had experienced two major setbacks.
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.
Mvambi said the project was now in the final phase,
involving a review of the websites of the 24 municipalities.
The province said the Free State government and
municipalities' online presence was fragmented, outdated and cluttered with
irrelevant information before 2011.
The project was aimed at not only improving this, but at addressing
legislative and regulatory compliance aspects of departments, entities and
municipalities.
Mvambi said provincial departments and entities had to
comply with Treasury instructions on the information to be posted on a website.
Municipalities also had to comply with legislative
prescripts in the Municipal Finance Management Act about the running of a
website.
Civil rights group AfriForum indicated it would investigate the Free State website tender.
AfriForum’s deputy head of local government affairs Ivan Herselman said it would look at the circumstances surrounding the awarding of the tender, to determine whether there were any irregularities.
"We requested all the information from Sita and the Free State Provincial Government regarding the bid,” he said.
- SAPA
