Cabinet has finally moved to stabilise the State IT Agency (Sita), approving a permanent board after more than two years of turmoil that left government’s central IT procurement engine badly bruised and under intense scrutiny. The decision marks a significant reset for Sita, which has been engulfed in boardroom fights, legal defeats, stalled projects and questions about whether the agency can still serve as the backbone of the state’s digital infrastructure.
Communications minister Solly Malatsi welcomed the appointments on Thursday, saying the new board would serve for a three-year term and brings the mix of skills needed to steady the ship. He said the agency must now play a meaningful role in building a “capable, modern and digitally enabled state”, a phrase that reflects the scale of the challenge ahead.
The new board is headed by Stella Bvuma, the University of Johannesburg academic who was previously deputy chair of the Sita board that was removed in 2023. Her return is one of the clearest signs that Cabinet is trying to restore continuity after a period in which the agency’s leadership structure kept shifting under pressure. Bvuma’s appointment also places a familiar figure back at the centre of one of the most politically sensitive IT bodies in government.
She is joined by a mix of returning and new members, including Collen Weapond, Zimbini Hill, Siphumelele Dlungwane, Rendani Ramabulana, Nalini Maharaj, Protas Phili, Willie Vukela and Willie Mathebula. Weapond, Vukela and Mathebula all continue from the interim board that was put in place earlier this year, while Dlungwane, Maharaj and Phili bring fresh expertise in finance, law and public-sector operations.
Ramabulana’s presence is particularly notable. He was one of the directors dismissed during the 2023 shake-up and later challenged that decision in court. The legal fight ended badly for then-communications minister Mondli Gungubele, with the Pretoria High Court ruling in favour of the dismissed directors, and the Supreme Court of Appeal later backing that outcome in 2024. That court battle became a symbol of the deeper governance breakdown inside Sita.
The crisis started in July 2023 when Gungubele removed seven non-executive directors after a bitter dispute over then-CEO Bongani Mabaso’s salary package. Gungubele argued the board had acted “unilaterally” by pushing through a R1-million increase without proper consultation, allegedly breaching Sita’s memorandum of incorporation. Mabaso was reportedly offered R4.5-million a year, above an earlier recommendation of R3.5-million.
Mabaso later resigned and moved to Altron as group chief technology officer, but the damage inside Sita had already been done. The leadership fallout left the agency in limbo and deepened concerns about whether the central procurement body could still handle the demands of a fast-changing public sector IT environment.
Sita board reset follows years of instability and procurement paralysis
The new Sita board arrives at a time when the agency is under heavier pressure than ever. Its governance turmoil overlapped with a procurement crisis that slowed or derailed government technology projects across departments, leaving officials scrambling to patch gaps in service delivery and digital systems.
A ministerial task team was brought in to help clear the backlog of stalled ICT contracts, but even that intervention triggered controversy. The Public Servants Association, Sita’s only recognised union, objected to the appointment of Simphiwe Dzengwa as acting managing director, citing worries over his political links and possible conflicts of interest because he chaired the same task team probing procurement issues at the agency.
To fill the leadership vacuum, Cabinet later appointed an interim board in February 2025 led by Sedzani Mudau, alongside Weapond, Vukela, Mathebula and Omega Shelembe. Malatsi thanked Mudau’s outgoing team this week for what he described as efforts to “restore stability” over the past year, suggesting the interim structure helped keep the agency functioning while a permanent solution was prepared.
But the scale of the problem goes far beyond boardroom politics. In April, TechCentral reported that the Auditor-General of South Africa had flagged Sita as a “systemic risk” to government IT, after identifying R12.1-billion in failed public technology projects. That label is not used lightly, and it signals just how damaging the agency’s dysfunction has become.
The AG’s consolidated audit report for 2024/2025 found that Sita had not delivered effectively on its mandate. Procurement was described as inefficient and poorly aligned with current ICT needs, which is a major problem for a state that relies on technology for everything from identity management to health systems and revenue collection.
The numbers were stark. Across 72 ICT projects assessed at 44 departments, 41 projects worth a combined R12.1-billion failed to meet targets on time, budget, quality and business outcomes. Of those, 15 were classified as high impact, underlining the public-service consequences of the failures. For ordinary South Africans, that translates into delayed systems, broken services and money wasted where it should have gone into delivery.
The audit also exposed alarming staffing gaps. Sita went for more than three years without a permanent CIO, while its executive vacancy rate reached 54% during the audit period. Across the broader public sector, the picture was little better: out of 191 CIO posts in national and provincial government, 27 were vacant, with 18 unfilled for more than six months. A further 156 IT positions were also left empty across departments and public entities.
Those failures have fuelled a growing political argument over whether Sita still makes sense in its current form. Home affairs minister Leon Schreiber has gone as far as calling it “an artificial construct that stands squarely in the way of technological progress”, while Malatsi has already tabled regulations that would allow departments to buy IT services directly when Sita cannot deliver.
That proposal has not been warmly received by everyone in Parliament. Some MPs have warned it could amount to an end-run around Sita’s legal mandate, but supporters argue the state can no longer afford to let critical projects stall while waiting for the agency to sort itself out. Our sources suggest the debate is likely to intensify as the new board settles in and begins confronting the backlog.
For now, the Cabinet-approved board gives Sita a rare chance to reset after years of conflict, litigation and operational decline. Whether it can turn that opportunity into meaningful reform will depend on how quickly it tackles governance, fills vacancies and rebuilds trust across government. As we reported earlier, the agency’s problems have been building for years — and the new board will be judged not on promises, but on whether it can finally make Sita work for the state it was created to serve.