R6.5 million website?

By Björn, July 11, 2009

What constitutes a 6.5 million rand website? Curious? Well so am I! Recently Durban (South Africa) spent R6.5 million for the development of it’s 2010 website which will showcase the country’s FIFA World Cup developments to the country and its visitors.

According to IT news website, ITWeb (article here), the website www.fifaworldcup.durban.gov.za, will have features such as a live webcam of the stadium as well as interactive postcards and galleries.

After scrutinizing the website myself, I am unable to figure out where the high costs come into play. As a web designer, I can’t help but be critical about the site. The design is definitely nothing to write home about and looking at some of the code on the site, it was built using outdated coding standards, such as tables. Even though the site was built using ASP, it is not any different from any open source content management systems I have seen before. In fact, I know of far more advanced CMS’s than what I see on that site.

True, there might be something going on behind the scenes which the public is not aware of, but R6.5 million??

There is a discussion on this at the famous Port Elizabeth website, MyPE.

I would really like to hear people’s opinions on this! If any professional web developers read this, please leave your comments! I would like to believe I am missing something here!

In: On the Web

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5 Responses to “R6.5 million website?”

  1. On July 11th, 2009 at 3:02 pm Alan said,

    Putting his index finger to his nose and bending it to the left he says; “You obviously don’t know a guy who knows a guy, kapeesh?”

    We have all been down the road of being completely astounded when such a sum is paid for a web site.

    It still gives me the creeps when people refuse to pay even 5 grand for a site and now this!

    Seems to me that these guys are living too close to the Transkei and helping the farmers move product at a rapid rate.

    An open source CMS would have been more than adequate.

    I wonder just how much the Durban Municipality is being charged for maintenance, hosting, content updates and whether that includes some serious SEO?

    (And ranking high for 2010 Durban World Cup does NOT count)

  2. On July 11th, 2009 at 4:57 pm deevine dee said,

    well, not knowing anything about anything technical – from a laywomans pov it is quite boring and there is nothing to lead one onto opening any links. it is apparent that the normal mo applies in this instance. have big budget, will spend. no one to check on where and how….and everyone has got on the 2010 bandwagon, like it is going to fix all of africas problems…ho hum. woza 2010 and if anyone out there has any ideas about how the rest of us can jump on board, i am all ears.

  3. On July 13th, 2009 at 8:34 am doron said,

    Well Alan hit it on the ‘nose’ but why be surprised? This kind of nepotism has been going on since the apartheid era, it was just easier to spot back then as the politicians were not in the habit of marrying their cousins. A rational person cannot believe that the 6.5m was really a fair or adequate amount to spend on a website with a 1.5yr lifespan, unless of course they hire me to do the job. I would have done the whole site in Frontpage 98 for half that amount!

  4. On July 13th, 2009 at 11:20 am Björn said,

    I’m glad to see I’m not the only one that immediately saw this from a political point of view.
    Makes you wonder what kind of money our government have in reserve.
    I mean what would Eskom have been able to achieve with a cash injection like that, or what about low cost housing for the poor. How many families can 6.5 million feed?

  5. On October 16th, 2009 at 4:16 pm Kevin said,

    It’s what you get with affirmative action. Greed & stupidity,

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