MRADI WA PS3 WAIPONGEZA TOVUTI YA HALMASHAURI YA WILAYA YA RUNGWE

Imewekwa Tarehe: February 9th, 2022

1. Review functioning of Chunya and Rungwe DCs Websites. 

Nazar Sola PS3

The first review was on the Chunya website which was not doing well in terms of viewership, uploading of key documents and the recency of uploaded information. Some documents were missing or very outdated. For example, tender documents and minutes of full council, annual statements of income and expenditure, the strategic plan and plans and budgets were not uploaded or were outdated. The menus on events, advertisements and currents news had information dating back to 2018. Most current information is on the implementation of Covid funded projects in Education. Upon enquiring it was informed that the Information Officer retired, and the council assigned the cultural officer the responsibility of managing the website. Viewership at the time of the visit read 22056 and at the time of writing this report it was 22,103 an increase of only 47 viewers. During the next visit discussions will be held with the Cultural Officer to identify support needed to improve the functioning of the website.

Unlike Chunya, the Rungwe DC website is among the best performing websites of Mbeya LGAs. This is quite a success story since the website was in March 2021 reported to have been out of use for almost a year following the transfer of the IO to another region. Efforts by the LGA to appoint a temporary IO made things even worse as the Website layout was completely tempered with. The then ICTO who was also relatively new in the LGA tried to bring it back to normal but all in vain. As of June 2021, the council had not uploaded the five key documents mentioned in the GWF guideline including the MTEF, CDR/CFR, Strategic plan, investment profile and minutes of the full council meetings. Moreover, it was not linked to any social media and most posted information was out of date (as far back as 2017/209). The number of visitors was the lowest (18,000) compared to those of other websites of all LGAs in the region.

Fortunately, in June 2021 the council officially assigned Mr. Noah Kibona a former secondary school teacher (later recategorized to IO) the mandate of managing the website. To the surprise of many the website started to function again! According to Mr. Kibona:

“what I first asked for was an access to the password. Then I started visiting other LGA websites to compared them with ours. I noted big difference in terms of the appearance and the general set up; most of the information was more than two years old. Slowly I started making the improvements. This was a self-learning by doing experience. Certainly, I approached the CD and HODs for support which they willingly provided. I was so encouraged! Slowly our website started to function again. I try to upload as current documents and information as possible. I am normally asked to participate in most events that take place to make coverage take photos and write stories and reports” 

Indeed, the website is one among the best performing in the southern highlands cluster. It is to some degree serving as a platform for informing citizens, the private sector and other stakeholders including DPs. The slider menu serves as an example as it has a variety of pictures depicting the various social economic activities undertaken in the LGA. The number of visitors at the time of writing this report was 27,316 and increase of 9,316 within a period of six months. The average daily number of visitors is 53 which is relatively higher compared to many LGA websites. Certainly, there are some improvements needed to make it adhere to the GWF guidelines. For example, there are uploaded documents which are not in their proper menu bars and some key documents are not yet uploaded including the strategic plan and full council minutes. It suffices to conclude that the IO needs more skills and techniques of writing for the website to ensure quality information, captions, headlines pictures/videos, etc., so that the website serves the intended purpose.