The City of Durban has come under fire from one of its own councillors for its R6.5 million 2010 Web site project, saying the money has been wasted and the process should have been more transparent.
Councillor Warwick Chapman has posed questions to the council requesting an explanation on some of the decisions which have been taken. He has also requested for more visibility on the project, saying decisions by the city should be interrogated.
ITWeb has also sent numerous requests to the city for details on how the money was spent and on what technology - but the municipality has declined to respond.
In his questions to the council, Chapman said the implementation of Microsoft Sharepoint-based products on the project should be questioned. Questions have been tabled for a council meeting on 30 July, and responses will only be made available at that time.
“It is contended that the existing www.durban.gov.za Web site already provides both a technically capable and policy compliant platform upon which to have developed the new Durban Fifa 2010 Web site and that the expenditure on the new site, which intends to replace it, is thus wasted,” he says in a statement to the council.
In its explanation of the project costs, the city previously stated the 2010 Web site will form part of other legacy projects, saying: “It will evolve into an information portal, which will incorporate the current www.durban.gov.za Web site and the use of the functionalities (Silverlight, Photosynth and Sharepoint) and content from the 2010 Web site.”
Chapman says the use of the costly Microsoft solution is not the right choice, given that all of government policy is directed at promoting open source. He says the Policy on Free and Open Source Software Use for South African Government brings into question the implementation of Microsoft Sharepoint-based products.
“The city has invested a lot of money in its existing platform. Everything they are trying to do on a new platform, they could do on an existing platform, which is already standards compliant,” he explains.
More questions
Chapman notes the lack of transparency clouds the entire process.
The municipality's statement, issued after ITWeb's initial story was published, and covering general information, rather than a cost breakdown, said the total cost of the electronic information approach for 2010 will be around R6.5 million.
The current projected cost for all the work done until 31 December 2010 is around R5.5 million, but the city believes it will contain that cost to under R5 million. The current actual cost of phase one, although it is not complete, is just under R1 million.
“There needs to be an explanation why these decisions were made. These decisions need to be interrogated,” Chapman adds.
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