<story><title>South African province spends $15.4M (140M ZAR) on WordPress site</title><url>http://www.techcentral.co.za/r140m-for-govt-website-report/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>RyanZAG</author><text>The causes behind this are truly more systemic than mere corruption, and actually pull at the very root of problems in Africa and many developing economies in the current tech environment.&lt;p&gt;In USA/Europe/increasing in China and India, basic tech and internet projects are fairly well understood by the general public. The idea of wordpress, blogs, and even a basic understanding of the internet and modern technology are fairly prevalent. Even with corruption in a small Texan town, something like pushing through a Wordpress site for $15m would be impossible - there is an understanding of how a website is created and what constitutes a million dollar vs a thousand dollar technology project.&lt;p&gt;I live in South Africa, so I see this every day: there is zero understanding by the majority of the population into any  internet related projects. Our major new tech companies tend to boost up the Johannesburg Stock Exchange into incredible valuations before suddenly realizing that their business models are terrible. Most entrepreneurship in the country is focused on targeting townships - people who can barely afford to eat, let alone think about technology, and unsurprisingly, these companies turn to government grants or dissolve.&lt;p&gt;These are all systemic problems from countries simply not being able to keep up with the rapidly accelerating technological developments - and I think it&apos;s going to be a massive problem in the future for any country not focusing on getting into the &apos;internet rush&apos;. It should be clear to most of us on HN just how important these kind of tech innovations are going to be on the future of humanity.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bmmayer1</author><text>I lived in South Africa and I wrote my thesis specifically on post-apartheid race politics.  There is an added problem here, which is the extent of corruption in so-called Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) programs.  The contractor here is a black-owned business, which is all well and good, but such companies are often a front for thinly veiled corruption where connected &quot;entrepreneurs&quot; can bleed taxpayers of millions of rand in the name of social progress.  Unfortunately, whereas BEE has created some wealthy black businessmen, it has done almost nothing to solve abject poverty among blacks in South Africa, and the program has been captured to an absurd degree.  It also can&apos;t be criticized, and any challenge to it is denounced as racist.  See the last line of this article: &quot;Ntsele told the newspaper opposition parties had an agenda against black businessmen and that the website’s cost was fair.&quot;</text></comment>
<story><title>South African province spends $15.4M (140M ZAR) on WordPress site</title><url>http://www.techcentral.co.za/r140m-for-govt-website-report/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>RyanZAG</author><text>The causes behind this are truly more systemic than mere corruption, and actually pull at the very root of problems in Africa and many developing economies in the current tech environment.&lt;p&gt;In USA/Europe/increasing in China and India, basic tech and internet projects are fairly well understood by the general public. The idea of wordpress, blogs, and even a basic understanding of the internet and modern technology are fairly prevalent. Even with corruption in a small Texan town, something like pushing through a Wordpress site for $15m would be impossible - there is an understanding of how a website is created and what constitutes a million dollar vs a thousand dollar technology project.&lt;p&gt;I live in South Africa, so I see this every day: there is zero understanding by the majority of the population into any  internet related projects. Our major new tech companies tend to boost up the Johannesburg Stock Exchange into incredible valuations before suddenly realizing that their business models are terrible. Most entrepreneurship in the country is focused on targeting townships - people who can barely afford to eat, let alone think about technology, and unsurprisingly, these companies turn to government grants or dissolve.&lt;p&gt;These are all systemic problems from countries simply not being able to keep up with the rapidly accelerating technological developments - and I think it&apos;s going to be a massive problem in the future for any country not focusing on getting into the &apos;internet rush&apos;. It should be clear to most of us on HN just how important these kind of tech innovations are going to be on the future of humanity.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jbail</author><text>I&apos;ve seen many millions of dollars spent on websites, logos, and webpage designs in the United States over the past decade. In many cases, there was clearly A LOT of profit built into the price. $15 million is no doubt a lot for a Wordpress site. But, I&apos;ve seen $6 million spent on a logo. Is that more or less ridiculous?</text></comment>