The Cherry Online-Ikamva-Jugganaut consortium’s winning bid for the controversial Free State Web sites shows the province was set to be charged a ceiling total of R117 million.
ITWeb obtained a copy of the winning proposal and tender through an application made under the Promotion of Access to Information Act.
The total bid price, contained in the completed request for proposal, comes in at R39.1 million each year for three years, subject to inflation of 7.5%, and includes an amount of R14.2 million for travel costs, even though the consortium claimed bonus points for residing in the province.
The amount is more than twice as much as the province has said it has forked out so far, for what it claims is a 38 Web site-wide project. The winning bid came in at more than R30 million for each of its three phases, while the estimated project duration is 4 410 “man” days, which equates to 12 years working every day of the year.
Overheads come in at another more than R4 million a phase, but these are not specified, despite the province’s documentation requiring an explanation.
Costs are shared between the Department of the Premier and the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, said Mvambi.
Yet, Swift Consulting CEO and tech blogger Liron Segev points out that, based on the tender documents that ITWeb made available to him for input, the current online presence is a far cry from what it was meant to be, and is littered with security holes, broken links and bad code.
