Home affairs applies for divorce from Sita

The department of home affairs has applied for a separation from the State IT Agency (Sita), citing the latter’s lacklustre performance as a key risk to its IT modernisation efforts.

According to the home affairs annual performance plan for the 2025/2026 financial year, published earlier this week, home affairs’ dependency on Sita has led to frequent outages and system downtime, delays in the procurement of IT services, and cost overruns that have impacted its already constrained budget.

“The DHA has applied for separation from Sita. This would grant the DHA flexibility to source IT services from more reliable and cost-effective external providers, ultimately ensuring uninterrupted service delivery and enhancing national security,” home affairs said in the document.

“To successfully transition away from Sita, the DHA is exploring partnerships with private IT providers that can deliver robust, secure and high-availability services. These alternatives are expected to reduce downtime, streamline procurement processes and optimise costs,” it said.

According to the document, Sita’s poor performance has slowed operations and prevented the department from realising its modernisation goals. Home affairs described Sita’s role to its operations as critical, saying the agency’s poor performance has made it difficult “to achieve performance targets and ensure stable service delivery to citizens”.

As part of the assessment of its IT environment, home affairs partnered with the CSIR to diagnose issues in its IT systems, perform a root cause analysis and implement remedial actions to improve its application architecture.

Funding constraints

According to home affairs, outdated infrastructure and funding constraints have crippled this process. Added to this are what the department claims are higher costs imposed by Sita when compared to market rates, which have placed further strain on its budget for critical infrastructure and cybersecurity.

Home affairs cited the lack of always-on monitoring systems as well as gaps in information security protocols as additional risks to its IT environment.

Read: ANC-DA tensions rising over fix for Sita mess

More pertinent are operational inefficiencies, such as the alleged “ineffective” management by Sita of key service providers, which home affairs claims has led to extended system outages and slow response times. The consequences extend beyond the provision of citizen services, ultimately impacting national security, according to the department.

“Sita’s inefficiencies in managing third-party contracts, such as with BCX and Telkom, have exacerbated operational risks, affecting national security and service delivery. Disruptions to biometric systems at ports of entry increase security risks and undermine border management,” it said.

Home affairs said pressure to provide a richer bundle of digital services is mounting as public expectations rise. At the same time, budget cuts further exacerbate the need for the entity to maximise its return on the money it spends on IT services, making its split from Sita an even higher priority.

This is not the first time that home affairs has called for a separation from Sita. Minister Leon Schreiber last November urged for all government IT to be divorced from Sita. “Sita is an artificial construct that stands squarely in the way of technological progress, not only at home affairs, but across government,” the minister said.

In a December statement ordering the Public Service Commission to launch a probe into Sita’s affairs, communications minister Solly Malatsi said “numerous” government departments have sought exemptions from using Sita’s procurement services due to its alleged inefficiencies. These include the South African Police Service and the justice department.

Earlier this month, Malatsi introduced regulations that would allow government departments to procure IT services without Sita’s involvement. This was met with fierce opposition from his ANC counterparts in parliament, including parliamentary chair of the communications portfolio committee Khusela Diko. Diko acknowledged that Sita does have issues with its governance and operations but also accused Malatsi of “bypassing the law” and “devolving the capacity of the state”, arguing that his approach should be focused on fixing the entity from within.

“The minister has merit on some of the issues that he wants to address, and he is well within his right to do so. But the minister has to follow proper process and stick to the letter and spirit of the law,” Diko said at the time.

Home affairs, meanwhile, said its IT modernisation efforts are important given that immigration policies are evolving. To this end, government reforms, particularly in digital governance, also shape the DHA’s modernisation projects.

Read: Tech crucial to rooting out corruption at home affairs: minister

“A digital DHA is the only way to deal effectively with the human resource and financial constraints. Automation will make resources available which could be channelled to much-needed areas elsewhere in the organisation and relieve pressure on the fiscus,” said home affairs.  – © 2025 NewsCentral Media

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