Public sector 1

President Cyril Ramaphosa, Cape Town City Hall

The 2026 State of the Nation Address (SoNA) in February laid out an ambitious vision of a digitally-enabled state and a connected populace. Anchored by a R1 trillion infrastructure commitment (from a combined private and public sector), the state plans to provide universal access to the internet through SA Connect, expand infrastructure through fibre, mobile and datacentres, and create modernised public services via MyMzansi. However, the Budget revealed a huge gap between policy ambition and fiscal restraint.

For instance, the R700 million special allocation to the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT) sounds impressive. But a closer look at the fine print reveals that the expenditure is entirely directed to ‘rescue and rehabilitation’ – granted to the DCDT specifically to service the SABC’s historic debt to signal distributor Sentech. This includes R189 million for ‘dual illumination’ – the costly process of running analogue and digital signals simultaneously because the switchoff deadline keeps being missed. Anything left over is required to fill crucial technical posts that have been left vacant for years. So, this is not glamorous ‘new technology’ spending, this is critical maintenance. Sentech was declared a ‘going concern’ risk, and this bailout has more to do with keeping the national broadcasting ecosystem alive than expanding it.