The spirit of Joomla! keeps spreading

A small town in the central province of Free State, South Africa has adopted Joomla! to develop its local municipality's website. Dihlabeng Local Municipality had a pressing need to rework its website. After about two months of development and testing, Dihlabeng Local Municipality's website (www.dihlabeng.gov.za) was launched to much fanfare.

The site utilized K2, jDownloads, jComments, jEvents and SOBI for the website's different requirements. The website has surpassed the expectation of the project managers and that of the municipality.

“We chose Joomla! because it is easy to learn, extensible and our client's requirement were met with ultimate ease and panache,” said Teakay Mosia, the project manager.

The previous website was then discarded. The new Joomla! CMS-driven website has received mixed reactions. The mere fact that the website's content could be updated immediately in real time was a real added bonus. There were a few complaints about the system being too intense, finicky and made for web-savvy people only, but after some basic training, the attitude changed.

The Municipal Manager has nothing but praise for the website, “…I think it is best to note the people that really matter in this regard are the Dihlabeng community and their response has been positive,” said Zanele Ndaba, IT Officer at BC Solution (service provider that developed the website). The Dihlabeng Local Municipality is now in the process of selecting a webmaster and administrator for this website.