Having
read the response of an unidentified official for the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs on the Ministry's website (Tribune 5th March), it is
clear that the Ministry is lost on the subject of its website
development.
The Ministry's official offers as the reason that the website is not up
to date the fact that they are in the process of transferring to the
Government's website platform. It would be a grave mistake for the
Ministry to switch its stand-alone website over to being a part of the
government's website in the absence of a substantial investment in and
upgrade of the present platform of the Bahamas Government's website.
The government's website is inadequate because it cannot handle the
existing traffic demands. It is slow. The Government's website is down
fifty percent of the time and is not properly updated or maintained.
This was the reason when I was the Minister; the Ministry chose not to
join the government's website. Those problems have still not been
resolved.
The issue of the platform is one thing but the real issue is the fact
that the Ministry's website is content deficient, when it should be
content driven. The ‘reason’ that the official offered is an excuse
that is almost one year old. The Ministry continues to do a disservice
to the country by continuing, for over one year now, to talk about
upgrading and transferring a service when there is little evidence to
suggest that the Ministry gives a hoot about the public's right to
know what, if anything, the Ministry is doing for the Bahamian people.
