Cabinet approves new permanent Sita board, ending years of turmoil

Cabinet has approved a new, permanent board for the State IT Agency (Sita), drawing a line under more than two years of leadership instability that has hobbled government’s centralised IT procurement organisation and helped trigger a damning rebuke from the Auditor-General.

Communications minister Solly Malatsi on Thursday welcomed the appointments, which run for a three-year term. The new board takes over from an interim structure.

“The newly appointed board brings the experience and expertise required to guide Sita to ensure that the agency contributes meaningfully to building a capable, modern and digitally enabled state,” Malatsi said.

The new board consists of:

• Stella Bvuma (chair): The University of Johannesburg academic was deputy chair of the previous Sita board sacked by then-communications minister Mondli Gungubele in July 2023 over a row over then-CEO Bongani Mabaso’s salary.
• Collen Weapond: Weapond continues from the interim board appointed in February 2025, where he represented the department of communications & digital technologies.
• Zimbini Hill: Another returning director, also among those dismissed by Gungubele in the 2023 purge.
• Siphumelele Dlungwane: A new appointee, Dlungwane is a CA who holds an MPhil in development finance, an honours in certified theory of accounting and a BComm in financial accounting.
• Rendani Ramabulana: One of three sacked Sita directors who took Gungubele to court and won — first at the high court in February 2024, when leave to appeal was denied in June 2024, and again at the supreme court of appeal in July 2024.
• Nalini Maharaj: Director and practicing attorney at Ishana Maharaj Incorporated.
• Protas Phili: A chartered accountant who previously served as the chief financial officer of state signal distributor Sentech.
• Willie Vukela: continues from the interim board as the department of public works representative.
• Willie Mathebula: Continues from the interim board as national treasury’s representative.

Sita’s governance crisis erupted in July 2023 when Gungubele dismissed seven non-executive directors – including Bvuma, Hill and Ramabulana – after a fallout over Mabaso’s pay package. According to Gungubele, the board “unilaterally” decided to raise Mabaso’s salary by R1-million without consulting him, in breach of Sita’s memorandum of incorporation. Mabaso was actually offered R4.5-million a year against an earlier recommendation of R3.5-million.

Read: R12.1-billion wasted as government IT projects collapse

Three of the sacked directors challenged the move. The high court in Pretoria ruled in their favour, ordering their reinstatement, and Gungubele’s subsequent appeal was thrown out by the supreme court of appeal in 2024. Mabaso, meanwhile, resigned and joined JSE-listed Altron as group chief technology officer.

The board upheaval unfolded against a long-running procurement crisis. A ministerial task team was deployed to clear a backlog of stalled IT contracts, but its arrival drew union pushback over the appointment of Simphiwe Dzengwa as acting MD, with the Public Servants Association – Sita’s sole recognised union – raising concerns about Dzengwa’s perceived political connections and a potential conflict of interest stemming from his role as chair of the same task team probing Sita’s procurement.

The leadership vacuum was eventually plugged by an interim board chaired by Sedzani Mudau, appointed by cabinet in February 2025 alongside Weapond, Vukela, Mathebula and Omega Shelembe. Malatsi on Thursday thanked Mudau’s outgoing team for what he described as work to “restore stability” at the agency over the past year.

‘Systemic risk

The board chaos coincided with a sharp deterioration in Sita’s operational performance. In April, TechCentral reported that the Auditor-General of South Africa had flagged Sita as a “systemic risk” to government IT, citing R12.1-billion in failed public technology projects as evidence.

The AG’s consolidated report on national and provincial audit outcomes for 2024/2025 found that Sita had not effectively delivered on its mandate, with procurement processes that were inefficient and misaligned with current ICT requirements. Across 72 ICT projects assessed at 44 departments, 41 worth a combined R12.1-billion failed to meet objectives on timelines, budgets, quality and business outcomes – with 15 of the failed projects classified as high impact.

Read: South Africa planning big overhaul of public sector IT

The AG identified Sita’s governance woes as central to the dysfunction. The agency had operated without a permanent CIO for more than three years, and its executive vacancy rate stood at 54% during the audit period. The picture across the wider state was no rosier: of 191 CIO positions across national and provincial government, 27 were vacant – 18 of them for more than six months – and a further 156 IT posts went unfilled across departments and public entities during the audit period.

The dysfunction has led to the criticism of Sita’s procurement monopoly on state IT. Home affairs minister Leon Schreiber has branded Sita “an artificial construct that stands squarely in the way of technological progress”. Malatsi has tabled regulations that would let departments procure IT directly when Sita cannot deliver – a move opposed by some MPs as an end-run around the agency’s mandate.

The new board’s brief, according to Malatsi, is to stabilise Sita, strengthen governance and push through the reforms required to make the agency fit for purpose. – © 2026 NewsCentral Media