Home Affairs filing for divorce

The State Information Technology Agency (SITA) has expressed its discontent with the Department of Home Affairs’ (DHA) intention to sever ties with the Agency.

Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber recently sought to sever ties with the government’s lead IT agency, aiming to accomplish what his predecessors could not as the department grapples with ongoing system downtime.

In its 2025/26 annual performance plan, the DHA said it had made good on years of threats and requested to separate from SITA.

It claimed that this would enable the department to source IT services from more “reliable and cost-effective” external providers and improve national security.

“To successfully transition away from SITA, the department of home affairs is exploring partnerships with private IT providers that can deliver robust, secure and high-availability services,” said the DHA.

“These alternatives are expected to reduce downtime, streamline procurement processes and optimise costs.”

This follows a proposal from Communications and Digital Technologies Minister Solly Malatsi, suggesting that departments should be allowed to modify regulations.

This is to enable state entities to appoint their own IT service providers instead of being required to use SITA.

“SITA faces mounting challenges, including governance concerns, irregular procurement practices, operational inefficiencies, and an alarming deterioration in service delivery,” said Malatsi in December.

The agency is not taking this laying down, however, saying that it “plays a critical role in the efficient provisioning of ICT solutions to enable government to dispense services to members of the public.”

“Departments have a combined ICT budget of approximately R24 billion annually of which approximately R7 billion is channeled through SITA.”

SITA Head of Corporate Affairs Tlali Tlali said that the agency is concerned by DHA leadership’s growing public statements calling it a “monopoly,” an “artificial construct,” or “unreliable.”

“SITA has become an all-too-convenient scapegoat for project failures or inefficiencies, even in cases where we had no operational role to play.”

The agency said it has acknowledged its “past governance challenges” and is actively implementing reforms to restore SITA.

SITA response to DHA

The Agency has defended its performance amid criticism from the DHA, highlighting its role in delivering key ICT services and infrastructure upgrades.

“The Department is currently consuming core services from SITA, at a cost of about R243 million of its R1.2 billion ICT budget allocation,” said Tlali.

Despite multiple proposals “which have yet to be implemented,” SITA said the Department continues to blame it “for nearly all ICT challenges it is facing.”

SITA pointed to a five-year, R400 million investment to redesign its core network with SDN-ready systems across 24 switching centres, redundant core links improving availability to 99.35%, migration of customer VPNs, and deployment of Remote Environment Monitoring systems to reduce downtime.

It also noted that Layer 2 services were awarded to an industry partner, enabling a full migration to a resilient 10Gbps core by October 2024.

Additionally, SITA offered DHA a pro bono Digital ID solution aligned with ministerial priorities, but the Department did not formally accept it.

The proposal was later incorporated into a broader government digitalisation initiative, where SITA remains a strategic contributor.

“Apart from procurement delays affecting a small portion of services, SITA has delivered all agreed-upon outcomes and service milestones, many under significant budgetary constraints,” Tlali said.

Regarding infrastructure challenges, SITA said that it fulfilled a Proof of Concept for multiple access links at sites, submitting a report in March 2022.

However, they opted not to proceed, citing occasional downtime on the legacy core. SITA had recommended dual-line redundancy to address this.

On cybersecurity, SITA claimed ongoing investments in security controls, incident response, awareness campaigns, and adherence to international standards, reinforcing its commitment to protecting national information assets and improving cybersecurity resilience.

“The Agency is prepared to engage the DHA further to clarify misconceptions and to re-establish strategic alignment,” said Tlali.

DHA and DCDT not the only ones with SITA troubles

The DHA has not been the only one going head to head with SITA.

Recently, chairperson of Parliament’s Justice and Constitutional Development Committee, Xola Nqola, criticised SITA for hindering court operations due to connectivity and infrastructure challenges.

“It comes across as if there are delays in what the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development (DoJ) have been planning to do due to SITA,” said Nqola.

“As far back as last year, we took an official committee decision to call SITA and the department to iron out the challenges,” he added.

The committee was briefed on the Integrated Justice System (IJS), aimed at linking agencies like SASSA and the Department of Home Affairs to streamline criminal justice processes and identity verification.

However, SITA was flagged for lacking capacity to deliver on IJS projects, with resources stretched across multiple initiatives and hindered by slow supply chain processes.

SITA acknowledged a high vacancy rate impacting capacity, and instability following board disputes that saw a dissolved board legally reinstated and merged with an interim board.

The Auditor General reported SITA “was slow” in acting on recommendations and issued a disclaimer audit opinion.

“The committee and the AG now bear the responsibility of strengthening accountability to see through the problems engulfing the entire system,” said Nqola.