The decision of Mandatory Zdravko Krivokapić to reduce the number of ministries from 17 to 12 will not only affect the work of the state administration, but also its Internet side, which is currently being worked on by the Montenegrin company "Fleka".
After 11 years, the Government should soon get a new portal. The executive director of "Fleka" Miloš Milošević told "Vijesta" that he is expected in the first days after the New Year holidays.
"Even before the announcement of the mandate for the composition of the new government, from the project side of looking at the future platform, we assumed that there would be certain regrouping of departments and responsibilities as expected. This is something that often happens in situations of establishing a new government, and the existing platform did not deal with these issues at all," said Milošević.
In the second half of August, the Ministry of Public Administration (MJU) announced a tender worth EUR 115.000 for the creation of a new government portal.
The first phase, according to the tender documentation, included the pages of the president and three vice-presidents of the government, ministries, general secretariat... This job was won by a company from Cetinje for some 10.000 euros less.
In the meantime, parliamentary elections were held, in which the coalitions "For the future of Montenegro" of Zdravko Krivokapić, "Peer is our nation" of Alekse Bečić and "Black on white" of Dritan Abazović won.
Krivokapić decided to reduce the number of portfolios compared to the outgoing government of Duško Marković, which has three vice presidents, 17 ministries and a minister without a portfolio.
One of the decisions of the mandate that was met with a lot of criticism is the merging of the four current ministries into one - education, science, culture and sports.
"The fact that certain ministries or directorates merge/shut down, etc., means that the content nucleus must be constantly flexible so that it can be "moved" more easily, if there is a change of jurisdiction (unbundling/unification), taking into account content redirections , already indexed content on search engines and the like, so that end users can still find what they need," explained Milošević.
According to the request of the MJU, the new approach must be focused on the citizen and his needs, because the Government's portals must first of all be a service to citizens, while information must occupy a secondary place.
"It goes without saying that there are different use-cases that differ among citizens, the media, the NGO sector, etc. and each type of user has its own specific needs and reason why they came to the site. The quality practices of other countries, which are the subject of our analysis, indicate that this is the best way to approach such projects, which is against the background of user-centered design, which we always advocate," added the director of "Fleka".
He added that with Suzana Pribilović's department, they are working on analyzes of the current situation, taking into account the announced changes, and here, according to him, the biggest challenge will surely be the adequate selection of "old" data that will continue to be relevant, and for which it will be possibly to be transferred in the context of the new platform concept.
When asked by "Vijesti" whether they expect the mandate's decision to affect the time and costs of the work, the director of "Fleka" said that the project task is clear, precise and detailed and that they have no expectations that it will affect the budget or time frames.
According to Milošević, the primary goal is to create something of high quality for the citizens and the government that we will be proud of.
"To prove that the Montenegrin IT scene has matured to tackle large projects, as it normally does in foreign markets, so there is no reason why it should not be the same in the domestic market," he said.
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