I don’t usually write about political stuffs since I do not follow the heck all those parties are doing. Well … well … I pause for a while and look back, oh Lord, it’s a mess they have made this country.
When the Government unveiled their Rs 50M not-worth-it website, tears flowed down my cheeks. It was a slap to all those IT engineers employed in the private sector (by foreigners). Companies from Europe & USA have outsourced major parts of their Business Intelligence & Process here while our Government doesn’t find enough competence locally for the development. Needless to say the website still can’t handle a few thousand concurrent visitors. So, Rs 50M for a new look (which is ugly by the way)? Oh, one more thing, did they know there is something called open source? In one of the press articles I read that our country has to keep pace with technology. Come on, White House portal runs on drupal which is an open source project, same for Australian & Indian governments. When the website experienced technical difficulties, it was announced that it’s still on trial. Wait! An official website for the government which is live and has cost Rs 50M of tax-payers money, called trial? Did we elect them to run the country or try things? By the way, dear politically backed IT engineers of the Ministry, ever heard of development – staging – production cycle?
Sources: http://www.defimedia.info/defi-quotidien/dq-economie/item/28396-nouveau-portail-gov-mu-frci-explique-les-rs-50-millions.html http://www.lexpress.mu/article/le-nouveau-site-du-gouvernement-op%C3%A9rationnel-aujourd%E2%80%99hui http://www.linkdev.com/news-room/latest-news/link-development-celebrates-the-launch-of-mauritius-e-governement-portal/
Since a few weeks we hear the story of restaurant at Trou-aux-Biches. The concerned parties say they had things in a legal way. I’m not contesting that. I just want to know how transparent things are? What criteria were considered when approving the bail? On what grounds were other applications rejected? I even heard others saying why not contest when the hotel construction was underway. Oh come on, at some point in time the citizens need to wake up. It’s better now than never.
That restaurant saga isn’t over yet … and we have another bell which started to ring. Again it’s a whole story that our country needs to keep pace with technology… so, Mauritians need a digital identity card! Pfff… In what way does that make us advance? Explain to me right now, right here! Oh! We won’t need to carry documents and senior citizens will benefit when making applications. We don’t need digital ID cards for that, rather teach the government officials some manners & make them productive. Problem solved! Tax-payers money will be saved.
The government wants to see the country advance? Then how long will you take to make IT services affordable to businesses? A 2M ADSL line costs Rs 5,635/month and that’s not a premium service; you have a fault in your line & a technician comes only after 72 hours. A few weeks back I inquired with several companies for local hosting (VPS, shared hosting etc) and guess what I got as quote for a VPS :
2 vCPU
4G Memory
128 Kbps Premium Internet Bandwidth
…for something like Rs 16,000 / month!!
Dear Government, a VPS with 2 vCPU, 4G Memory & Tier-1 Bandwidth costs me Rs 1,200 / month elsewhere. Yes, Mauritius will advance a lot with your digital ID Cards, I can see that coming.
What is happening in the country right now, I call it the rape of democracy! It’s Monarchy 2.0 where leadership is passed from father to son while real social workers remain obscured.