Local Government paid $15407642.19 for a Wordpress website

[klinc]

Johannesburg - The Free State provincial government spent R140m on its website, it was reported on Monday.

Free State director general Elzabe Rockman signed a three-year contract to redesign the website in 2011, the Sowetan newspaper reported.

She had reportedly disputed the amount, claiming it was actually R40m.

The agreement was signed with businessman Tumi Ntsele, who reportedly holds tenders with several other provincial departments.

The Sowetan reported that the company was awarded the tender even though two other companies submitted significantly lower bids

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Free-State-govt-spends-R140m-on-website-20130304

The Freestate Government paid R140 million for a fucking Wordpress website. I went onto the website, www.freestateonline.fs.gov.za and with a simple right-click, ‘view source code’ I established that the website was indeed powered by WordPress and further more, it wasn’t even a custom developed theme but a theme from the ThemeForest library that can be bought for $40. All they really did was add content and chance some colours – very basic to do in WordPress.

Thinking about throwing in a blog tender for a 100 mil:biggrin:

 

[Jadow]

so glad it's not an American govt entity

 

[PokerGuy]

The ability to waste incredible amounts is apparently universal among governments

 

[SaurusX]

Use some commas.

 

[Slew Foot]

you are witnessing the spread of American democracy.

 

[DominionSeraph]

I'd rate that site higher than IBM's "Oh god how do I work this?" one.

http://www.ibm.com/us/en/

 

[OutHouse]

Lol

 

[sunzt]

This is capitalism...

 

[klinc]

I wonder if the Tender was done via Email and the designer is from Lagos?

Reminds me of this

SEVERAL senior Zimbabwe government officials investigating claims by a ‘diesel mystic’ that she had discovered diesel oozing from a rock were blinded by her beauty and endorsed her phoney story, President Robert Mugabe said Thursday.

Senior police officers snubbed an order to arrest the self-styled spirit medium, Rotina Mavhunga, convinced that she had supernatural powers and was “untouchable”, Mugabe said at the commissioning of a bio-diesel plant at Mount Hampden.

Mugabe’s extra-ordinary remarks revealed for the first time how he personally chaired meetings to discuss claims by the 35-year-old woman that she could produce pure diesel out of rocks, and how his government met her demands for two head of cattle and three buffaloes after falling for her outlandish story.

Mugabe also revealed how Mavhunga took large sums of money (Z$5 billion), a car and a piece of land from the nation's highest ranking politicians, promising in return to use spells to produce diesel fuel from Maningwa Hills in the bush outside the provincial town of Chinhoyi, 70 miles northwest of Harare.

http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/fuel42.17176.html

No wonder Zimbabwe is a shit hole

 

[wirednuts]

wtf? dad once asked me to build a website for him for $1000 and i turned it down, foreseeing a lifetime of free updates and maintenance. but if he offered me that sort of cash, i would have learned html so well my dna is encoded with it.