SITA’s head office in Erasmuskloof, Pretoria. (Photograph by Lesley Moyo)
The embattled State Information Technology Agency (SITA) is committed to working with the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) and other clients to iron out service delivery challenges, it says.
This, as the agency continues to face delivery and capacity issues, which have led to the DHA reportedly seeking to cut ties with the state’s IT procurement arm.
DHA branches – with the core function of managing identity, civil status and migration of citizens – frequently experience technology interruptions and network downtime issues, with the blame often placed on government IT agency SITA’s doorstep.
Last week, it emerged the department intends to sever ties with SITA, to source “more reliable and cost-effective” IT services from external providers, as noted in its 2025/26 annual performance plan.
The move, according to the DHA, is necessitated by issues like system downtime, enhancing national security and cost optimisation.
Despite the DHA’s assertions, SITA has stated it is committed to working with the DHA and is not to blame for all of the department’s ICT challenges.
According to SITA, it will, among other measures, seek to obtain an update on the proposals presented to the DHA, dating back to 2021.
“SITA plays a critical role in the efficient provisioning of ICT solutions to enable government to dispense services to members of the public,” says Tlali Tlali, head of corporate affairs.
“These departments have a combined ICT budget of approximately R24 billion annually, of which approximately R7 billion is channelled through SITA. This further translates into technical coverage of 37% of the ICT landscape managed, controlled and secured by SITA.”
An entity of the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies, SITA sits as a central pillar of the state’s IT procurement, acting as the backend office of government ICT. It is also responsible for developing, operating and/or maintaining ICT services consumed by government departments.
However, its governance, performance and existence have continuously been called into question, amid delayed tender awards, irregular spending and high staff attrition.
Home affairs isn’t the only department to voice its frustration with SITA’s processes and systems, as the South African Police Service, justice and constitutional development and basic education departments have also previously expressed their dissatisfaction.
More recently, Standing Committee on Public Accounts chairperson Songezo Zibi also raised concerns about SITA, saying its performance failures adversely affect government effectiveness.
Clarifying misconceptions?
However, according to SITA, it has made multiple proposals to the DHA, which have yet to be implemented. Despite these efforts, SITA says the department continues to blame the agency for nearly all of its ICT challenges.
Resultantly, the agency has sought to provide clarity on some of these issues.
SITA says it has “consistently” delivered on its service delivery commitments to the DHA, including several projects and infrastructure overhauls designed to support the department’s modernisation agenda.
According to the agency, these include a five-year R400 million investment to redesign the SITA core network, replacing outdated infrastructure with software-defined network-ready systems across 24 switching centres.
This also includes redundant core links, procured in 2022 and approved by National Treasury, which improved core availability to 99.35%. SITA also notes migration of customer VPNs to new infrastructure and installation of remote environment monitoring systems to prevent downtime at switching centres, as well as layer two services awarded to an industry partner, culminating in the complete migration of SITA’s core network to a 10Gbps architecture by October 2024.
“Furthermore, SITA has delivered pro-bono services to the DHA, including the proposed digital ID solution, aligned with ministerial priorities. Despite several engagements, the department did not formally accept this offer, and the proposal was later absorbed into the broader inter-departmental working group on government digitalisation – where SITA remains a strategic contributor.”
According to the IT agency, the DHA consumes only 20% of its ICT services from SITA, and most of the spending relates to mandatory services.
“Apart from procurement delays affecting a small portion of services, SITA has delivered all agreed-upon outcomes and service milestones, many of which were implemented under significant budgetary constraints from the department.
“SITA has also fulfilled the requirements of a proof of concept for multiple access links at service level agreement sites.”
It adds that despite a March 2022 report, the DHA later chose not to proceed with implementation, citing occasional downtime on the legacy core.
“SITA recommended dual-line redundancy to mitigate this issue – advice that was not taken forward.”
SITA notes it has invested in enhancing its cyber security posture through continuous control enhancements. “Where there may be security gaps identified, they are systematically addressed through ongoing security assessments and system upgrades for the protection of sensitive government information.
“SITA has also carried out cyber security maturity assessments and awareness sessions across government to assist in building capability and identifying improvement areas with proposed solutions to improve cyber security resilience.
“SITA remains firmly committed to safeguarding national information assets and driving the continuous improvement of its cyber security environment.”
The agency says it is concerned by the increasing frequency of public statements by the DHA’s leadership that mischaracterise SITA as a “monopoly”, an “artificial construct” or “unreliable”.
“SITA has become an all-too-convenient scapegoat for project failures or inefficiencies, even incases where we had no operational role to play. The department is currently consuming core services from SITA at a cost of about R243 million of its R1.2billion ICT budget allocation,” states Tlali.
SITA admits it has faced past governance challenges; however, it notes it is actively implementing reforms to restore trust and service excellence. “Every effort is directed at rebuilding a resilient, transparent and innovative state ICT agency.
“The agency is prepared to engage the DHA further to clarify misconceptions and re-establish strategic alignment.”
