Budget 2023: The communications department will receive an additional R3 billion in the 2023/24 and 2024/25 financial years, to implement phase two of South Africa Connect (SA Connect).
This is based on insights in National Treasury’s Estimates of National Expenditure (ENE) document, which is handed out to coincide with the 2023 National Budget.
Finance minister Enoch Godongwana today presented the 2023 National Budget Speech at Cape Town City Hall. The minister delivered his budget speech amid a worsening economic climate, debilitating power cuts, rising inflation and high unemployment.
Despite a strained national budget, Treasury has loosened its purse strings to fund the next phase of government’s ambitious broadband project.
According to the ENE, the additional R3 billion will be utilised for capital equipment and new fibre infrastructure, or to lease existing fibre, to expand ICT networks into underserviced areas.
Says the document: “Phase two also involves the State Information Technology Agency [SITA] upgrading and connecting government sites from existing budgets, and the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa imposing universal service obligations on mobile network operators to connect 18 036 schools, 3 873 health facilities and 8 241 tribal authority sites.”
Now in the making since 2013, SA Connect is the national broadband project identified by government to ensure universal access to broadband services for all South Africans, prioritising rural and underserviced areas.
Due to the magnitude of the project, the state determined the project should be implemented in two stages: phase one and phase two.
In phase one, it aimed to connect schools, health facilities, government offices, Thusong Service Centres and post offices, in eight rural district municipalities, to broadband services. During this phase, about 970 government facilities have been connected to broadband.
The communications department, supported by state‐owned entities such as Broadband Infraco, Sentech and SITA, says it will continue to provide broadband connectivity to government facilities over the medium-term expenditure framework (MTEF) period.
For government, it aims to connect 5.8 million sites to high-speed internet by 2025/26, as part of the phase two rollout of SA Connect.
“Phases one and two are allocated R3.8 billion over the next three years in the broadband sub-programme in the ICT infrastructure development and support programme.”
Policy regime
As the ministry charged with SA’s ICT agenda, the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies will have to achieve its mandate with a budget of R10.5 billion over the MTEF period.
In addition to coordinating the rollout of broadband through SA Connect, the communications department will further focus on legislative and regulatory interventions, states the ENE document.
These interventions will include finalising the Audio‐Visual Bill, introducing the South African Broadcasting Corporation Bill to Parliament, submitting the digital economy framework and strategy for approval to Cabinet, finalising the national cloud computing policy, and developing the Postal Services Amendment Bill, over the medium-term period.
“As a result, expenditure in the ICT Policy Development and Research programme is set to increase at an average annual rate of 1.4%, from R45.3 million in 2022/23 to R47.2 million in 2025/26,” says the document.
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