The State IT Agency’s (Sita’s) plans to launch a R6-billion project to build broadband infrastructure across South Africa are going ahead.

According to communications minister Mondli Gungubele, the project – details of which come less than eight weeks before South Africans go the polls in the most contested election since 1994 – will complement government’s existing SA Connect project. SA Connect is a programme to connect all government departments to the internet as well as provide free Wi-Fi and subsidised broadband to low-income and rural communities.

“Sita will launch a National Broadband Project worth at least R6-billion, which will be awarded per region and ensure that government reduces the cost and duplication of connectivity infrastructure from municipalities up to national government level,” Gungubele said in a media briefing in Pretoria on Thursday.

The minister did not say whether the funding has already been secured from national treasury and, if not, where Sita will raise the capital. He first told parliament about the plan in 2023.

Sita, meanwhile, is undergoing a process not too dissimilar to administration, where a ministerial task team has been assigned to sort out the organisation’s longstanding procurement issues.

Read: Battle over Sita board headed back to court

“A special directed intervention in the form of the Sita Ministerial Task Team to fast-track procurement backlogs has commenced work. Sita is in the process of meeting all clusters and provinces to find resolutions to all their urgent ICT challenges,” said Gungubele. – © 2024 NewsCentral Media