Premier Jay Weatherill says Ripe Intelligence was chosen for its track record in the sector, but the company has not delivered the service promised.

“They’ve manifestly failed us here, so we’ll be pursuing our rights against them,” the premier told reporters today.

The Alert SA app crashed on Saturday as a serious bushfire raged in the state’s South-East and as other fires were also burning, sparking Government anger.

Weatherill said the failure was an embarrassment to the government.

“Of course it is. It’s disgraceful. We contracted for a service and it failed.”

In the meantime, he said, the Government would fall back on the traditional sources of emergency services information.

Emergency Services Minister Chris Picton said on the weekend that Ripe Intelligence could not provide assurances that such a failure would not happen again and on that basis, SA’s emergency services would no longer support the use of the app.

Picton said the government would not renew the contract with the company when it expired in June and would work on developing its own mobile phone warning system.

A screenshot of the failed app.

Liberal emergency services spokesman Stephan Knoll said the app’s failure put people’s lives at risk.

He said previous failures of the app in October last year should have led to Government action to remedy the situation.

“The government has failed to heed the warnings of the previous app failure and associated review and this has left us in a chaotic and unprepared position right in the middle of the bushfire season,” he said.

“The government needs to find ways to contact everyone that has downloaded the app to alert them to the fact that the app should no longer be used.”

– with AAP