It has been widely reported that the Free State Government’s R100 million website is based on a $40 WordPress template

To demonstrate just how quick and easy it should have been to build the website, eNCA web developer, Jason Adriaan set out to whip up a replica. And what were the results? Craig’s version cost all of R360 and took two hours to set up. That’s 0,00015% of the amount that the Free State Government paid to Cherry Online Design.

According to Adriaan, no actual web development was executed in the creation of the Free State Government site. The total development and maintenance of the site should have cost no more than a few thousand Rand, according to yesterday’s report by Arthur Goldstuck of Worldwide Worx.

Goldstuck also noted the amount it took to make the South African Presidency website. The website was created by a company called Absolute Solutions and cost R250 000, including four year’s worth of maintenance.

[Source: YouTube, The Techie Guy]