South Africa begins structural review of state IT agency Sita — Daily Maverick

In South Africa, the Ministry of Communications and Digital Technologies has begun a structural review of the State Information Technology Agency, Sita, to determine its role in the digitalization of the public sector. Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies Solly Malatsi said the agency’s work would be assessed based on the efficiency, reliability and cost of services for departments, as well as the quality of citizens’ digital interaction with the state.

As Daily Maverick reports, the review is intended to determine Sita’s future functions, including ensuring that the agency’s work is not burdened by procurement. Malatsi linked historical delays, expensive and inefficient solutions to procurement. At the GovTech 2026 conference in Durban, he stressed that changes in leadership alone would not ensure reform — it must be implemented at all levels of the institution.

Consolidation of legacy systems

Sita’s permanent managing director, Magato Mello, named reducing the number of fragmented platforms and applications as one of the main tasks. According to him, maintaining legacy systems simultaneously burdens the budget and restrains technological development. The agency plans to assess which platforms can be decommissioned or consolidated.

More current news is available on the UA.News Telegram channel Telegram.

Mello also proposes moving from developing a large number of customized software products to shared multi-user cloud platforms. In his view, this approach will make it possible to meet most government departments’ needs more quickly, with the remaining functions added gradually.

Unified data infrastructure

The head of Sita believes that South Africa’s digital sovereignty requires shared systems and control over public data infrastructure. The article notes that the agency previously failed to create a unified digital system for government department data: six chief executives changed over seven years, while state data was stored on an unspecified number of international servers.

Mello explained that Malatsi’s policy, which allows departments to contact the minister in the event of procurement delays, is not a mechanism for bypassing Sita. Under this procedure, the agency has 10 days to state whether it can fulfill a department’s request.