Budget 2015: SA Connect, SA's ambitious project to provide ubiquitous broadband by 2020, will receive R1.1 billion in funding over the next three years.
The pilot project, which will connect 1 296 government institutions this year, is being handled by the Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services (DTPS). In the two following years, a total of 1 000 entities will be connected.
However, National Treasury has yet to receive an implementation plan for the project, which will eventually cost R6.7 billion before the pilot phase is completed.
The pilot phase, which will be used as a test bench, will be run in eight rural municipalities, outside of Gauteng and the Western Cape, which have their own projects.
President Jacob Zuma announced in his State of the Nation Address earlier this month that Telkom would be the lead agency for a state broadband project that would kick off this year. This project will cover eight rural municipalities outside of Gauteng and the Western Cape.
Spending growth
In the Estimates of National Expenditure document, handed out to mark today's budget speech, the DTPS notes SA Connect wants to "catalyse broadband connectivity, aiming to provide access to broadband to 50% of the population by 2016 and 90% by 2020". Under the policy, a broadband council will be appointed, and a wholesale open access network created.
Deputy minister of telecommunications and postal services Hlengiwe Mkhize has said Cabinet has taken a firm decision to designate Telkom as the lead agency for broadband deployment at national, provincial and local levels. "This will lead to a formation of a national broadband company to build an open-access network and connect all South Africans in the country."
SA Connect has four pillars: digital readiness, digital future, digital opportunity, and digital development. The pilot project, which will kick off this year, focuses on providing broadband connection services to schools, health clinics and other government facilities in eight districts where national health insurance is being piloted.
Spending, which will grow at 88% on average over the next three years, will deliver 2 296 connected government institutions and 1 572 connected schools by 2017/18, says the national estimates document. "Implementing agents and service providers will be contracted to assist with project management and developing the required infrastructure and services."
Finance minister Nhlanhla Nene today noted many South Africans regularly experience infrastructure failures, such as unstable water supplies, roads that are impassable when it rains, trains that break down, or poor telecommunication linkages.
Nene said these are long-term, costly challenges, so the work of the ministers involved, including telecommunication and postal services minister Siyabonga Cwele, is to make sure maximum value is derived out of available funds.
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