Ministry of Education dependent on Google?

I wrote previously about local MPs who were using US web based emails for their correspondence and US spying project like PRISM. It was exposed previously that 9 US internet companies had allowed US government to tap into their servers direcly, allowing the US government to gather intelliegence. The companies were, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, Youtube and Apple. Why can't our multi-billion government budget provide a simple and secured web email for our MPs?

This same kind of question begs when I was recently informed by a reader that even the Ministry of Education uses Google and Gmail for emails and cloud computing. How secure is such an arrangement? How much did the government pay for this?

Again, our multi-billion budget should be spent wisely, securing our information, and making sure citizens get their money worth. If the government is more than happy to use Google or Hotmail, then why do we need to pay competitive salaries to IDA staff or computer engineers? We might as well be using Gmail and Hotmail for everything.

See the screenshots for the MOE/Google log in pages: