Easy to be angry but I won't comment until I see what exactly was delivered. These projects often have a lot of extra.

Just the development would be expensive but if they also worked on scoping and framing the platform, aligning multiple stakeholders (yes, even just linking outside courses mean you might have to interact with other parts of government or providers) and defining the long term vision and plan, it can get expensive pretty quickly.

Doing anything with the government is a pain. It's even worse than working in a large company. You get paid very late. You have annoying contractual provisions. It makes everything very expensive.