Zim Tourism Authority wins Achievers award for a website ‘under maintenance’

Soon after we posted a story yesterday listing the winners of this year’s ICT Achievers Awards, comments to the article have all been negative with the common thread being that some winners do not deserve the awards at all. One such organisation that has been criticized is the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) which got the “Top Public Sector website of the year” award. Their website, www.zimbabwetourism.net was down. Well, under maintenance as the web host’s place-holder page above suggests.

Asking around we established that the website had been down since at least 1 November 2012. We contacted the permanent secretary of the Ministry of ICT Eng. Sam Kundishora to ask about this and he told us that he personally couldn’t give details and would check on the matter further and get back to us. He however commented that submissions and adjudication for the awards started as far back June 2012 and not at the end of the year.

The website itself has since been restored, clearly as a result of us calling the ICT Ministry to ask about it.

We also called the ZTA PR and spoke to Salome Chari, the manager of PR & Protocol. According to her, the website was under maintenance because they are currently “updating and upgrading it to make it more appealing”. She also told us that the website has been restored because of all the phone calls they are now getting from people like us.