They went and took offline what was probably Zimbabwe’s most useful website. And I mean “useful” in the sense of its importance to the country’s economy.
The ZSE website which we celebrated at launch in 2013 has been taken down, and its place is this – a couple of pages not of much use to anyone looking to understand the listed companies.
This is what we said in 2013 when the website was introduced:
The website is really impressive. And it’s not about design – the design is really good as well by the way – but it’s about information being available to people that need it. Freely. The website is loaded with lots of useful information that makes it so easy to track what’s going on in terms of the financials of listed companies. You can drill down on each company and get more details like its annual reports, graphs of its movement over a period, latest news on the counter, information on shares issued, the company’s executives, other companies related to it, and lots of other stuff.
All the information is available free to anyone.
Now it’s gone. It feels like we have gone back in time to a decade ago.
We contacted the exchange to get their comment but everyone we spoke to refused to say anything about it. A spokesperson we contacted via email did not respond. The CEO was unavailable.
We also contacted Biglaw, who developed the site (the one now offline) for the ZSE and they said they told us they have no comment.
We notice though that it’s not just the website – the Facebook page is gone and the Twitter account is not being updated anymore since 1 August.
The problem doesn’t just affect those that use the site directly. Apps like ZimStocks – we have written about them a few times here – that relied on the data on the ZSE website, have been affected too. They posted on their website earlier this month that they’ve had to suspend the app until the ZSE brings back the old site:
On Monday 1 August 2016, the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) revised their website to a significantly inferior version that barely provides any meaningful data. What this means for ZimStocks is that the algorithms we have developed to turn this data into useful and actionable information are no longer operational.
We hope whatever unprogressiveness and unreasonableness is going on at the ZSE, or Big Law or government (or whoever is causing this) can be reversed.
You can see the useful old site here.
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4 comments
May I suggest that you contact Eve Gadzikwa, the ZSE Chairperson about this issue. She is much more forthcoming and may be able to assist since the CEO is being evasive on the matter.
Given no credible reason for the takedown of such a useful site we can only conclude that it has something to do with money. Seriously where else is Biglaw going to sell code for a site written Zimbabwe Stock Exchange and all the custom coding added to such a site? Or is it ZSE failed to keep a wordpress site running and is lacking the necessary skills to restart it?
Since the really useful site was hosted on a “.com” domain I have a feeling ZSE wasnt in complete control of the site. They most likely had access to update the information bt obviously not the site. So I am guessing after running the site for so long they either did not have the necessary money to pay for the service or they failed to pay the necessary figure for the moolah to get the site code, which is all the needed since they already have a domain.
But then such is life? After a setback what is important is how you remedy the situation and not let it keep you down. And I do hope ZSE is working on a solution fast and not just pulling a wool over our eyes.
It’s more likely that they may want to monetise the stock related data. Or, it’s the designer/developer is looking for a 2nd pay day, there’s a note that a new website is under construction. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it…
kanyika kenyu aka ngakachingovhagwa. Not fit for the global economy because u too busy letting these ancient old fellas run it beyond repair.