The State IT Agency (SITA) has emerged from a period of retrospection and identified major gaps that must be addressed as it considers the role it should play in building SA’s digital ecosystem.
This is according to Christo Abrahams, CTO of Gijima, who spoke to ITWeb on the sidelines of the 20th annual GovTech 2026 event, held recently in Durban.
Under the theme “South Africa as architect of its digital destiny for citizens”, the 2026 programme shifted the focus from defining this vision to executing it, with an emphasis on measurable delivery, institutional accountability, sovereign capability and outcomes that directly benefit citizens.
Automated processes within SITA remain a key focus of the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies, which, together with the Public Service Commission, recently released findings of an investigation into governance, irregular procurement practices, operational inefficiencies, as well as the negative impact on service delivery at SITA.
The investigation found several issues that have impacted operations at SITA, including procurement irregularities, inconsistent consequence management and irregular expenditure.
Abrahams said that having acknowledged its mistakes, SITA is now well placed to invite stakeholders within the digital transformation ecosystem to help to drive digital sovereignty and the ecosystem.
But the sovereignty discussion in government is not only about data residency, he added.
“Often times, we think of the sovereign real estate as only being public digital infrastructure, and data can then reside within the benefactor… but data residency is not equivalent to sovereignty. The question is whether or not government is ready to exercise its juridicial right with regard to the ecosystem, but also the data that resides on that infrastructure?"
Abrahams pointed out that just because technology infrastructure is located within the borders of a country, this doesn’t necessarily equate to data sovereignty.
There are other considerations, said Abrahams, including answers to questions like “who has access?”, “who owns the crown jewels?”, “where is data encrypted?”, “where are the login credentials and where are they replicated to?" and "who operates and manages this?”
Abrahams said: “At GovTech, we bring the full digital sovereignty experience and OEM experience to the vital conversation that must be had on how to fully secure South Africa's capacity to develop, own and operate its own public service digital architecture.”
Gijima helped build and implement SITA’s government cloud infrastructure in partnership with technology multinationals IBM and Huawei.
SITA remains the owner and operator of the government cloud, which was intended to consolidate government ICT infrastructure and provide a shared, secure platform for departments.
Abrahams said the cost of digital dependence on ICT companies domiciled in other jurisdictions, and subject to those jurisdictions’ laws, was increasingly concerning, ranging from security risks to compromised autonomy in financial decisions.
Software contracts
Despite SITA’s government cloud system, many government departments, particularly at local municipality level, have separately entered into software contracts, particularly with Western-based software companies. This means data can be housed on cloud systems with servers located outside SA.
The cost of repatriating that information can be prohibitive, while geopolitical risks could expose the country to the possibility of data being held hostage or manipulated, Abrahams said.
Software licences also have to be renewed annually.
“You are paying in euros, dollars and yen and that goes into billions of rands, according to a report by the Industrial Development Corporation; the time to rectify this state of affairs is now,” said Abrahams.
Gijima deputy CEO Roberta Gumede said SA needs to put time, funding and effort into securing digital sovereignty: the capacity to exercise self-determination over its digital data, infrastructure, platforms and the rules that govern them.
“Digital sovereignty is a vital component of state security. It runs all the way from guarding against election interference to making sure our government is never so locked into infrastructure it doesn’t own or control what it can’t afford to change course,” said Gumede.
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