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NGO examines costs of websites developed by Slovak ministries

[07.12.2009, The Slovak Spectator, NEWS]

Analysts of the Conservative Institute of M. R. Štefánik, an NGO, made a survey concerning procurement costs of websites of Slovak ministries. As much as €73,058 is the difference between the most expensive and the cheapest websites, which departments of the Slovak government produced for EU co-financed operational programmes, the SITA newswire wrote.

The chart of most expensive websites is topped by a website of the regional operational programme, www.ropka.sk, procured by the Construction Ministry, which cost €76,297, excluding VAT.

An analyst with the Conservative Institute, Ivan Kuhn, pointed out that these were funds paid from the controversial bulletin-board tender. Moreover, he cannot rule out that the Construction Ministry paid another company six months ago for creation of the same website. Thus he said this information might not be final.

The Construction Ministry also placed second on the chart with the website of the national strategic reference framework, www.nsrr.sk, that cost €74,651. According to information of the institute, the Construction Ministry paid two companies for the creation of this website in one year.

The third most expensive website was procured by the Environment Ministry. On the other hand, the Health Ministry handled its funds most effectively, having paid €4,813 for two websites.

An IT expert who cooperates with the Conservative Institute, Ondrej Jombik, said that the most expensive websites are comparable to other websites and during his analysis of them he did not find any dramatic difference which would reflect the price difference between the most expensive and the cheapest website.

The analysts with the CI also told SITA that they had a bad experience in acquiring information from the Construction Ministry, which, unlike other ministries, refused to provide the information on the first request.

Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports. Article was published in the Slovakia`s English-language weekly The Slovak Spectator.