The government will continue to roll out the SA Connect project, earmarking R2.4bn for the rural connectivity initiative, according to the National Treasury’s budget for 2024/25.
Its main purpose is the development of networking infrastructure in remote areas.
SA Connect is now more than a decade in the making, with billions having already been poured in. It aims to connect 5.8-million sites to high-speed internet by 2025/26 and was approved in 2013.
On Wednesday finance minister Enoch Godongwana delivered his budget speech for 2024. In the accompanying Budget Review, Godongwana’s department showed that R2.4bn has been allocated “for implementing the [SA Connect] project over the medium term”. The amount includes one-off allocations for phase 2 of the project made in 2024/25 for R1.9bn and another R267.4m for 2025/26.
“This spending is in the broadband sub-programme in the ICT Infrastructure Development and Support programme,” said the Treasury.
Rural areas have low network coverage levels as telecom operators have avoided investing there because of the expense. Providers would rather invest in towns and cities with big populations who are major consumers of communications services.
To resolve the disparity the government plans to use public sector resources to close connectivity gaps. By connecting government entities through the State Information Technology Agency (Sita), Sentech and Broadband Infraco, it can build rural networks.
However, as with many well-intentioned government plans, execution has been limited. Budget constraints and other issues have delayed the programme. Split into two phases, the scope of the first segment was greatly reduced, cutting the goal of connecting 6,135 government facilities down to 970.
Godongwana’s department says these 970 government facilities will continue to be provided with connectivity over the medium term through phase 1 of the SA Connect project, and 5.1-million households will be connected through phase 2.
This comes days after the Gauteng provincial government said it had invested R2.7bn to provide reliable broadband and 5G connectivity to businesses in the province.
Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi, during his 2024 state of the province address on Monday, said this was meant to encourage greater investment in the province.
Investment in the Gauteng Broadband Network (GBN) is meant to benefit schools, small businesses and public institutions in the province.
But this project — another one that has been in the works for a decade — has had its share of headaches.
Technology firm Altron put one of its divisions up for sale in July 2023 after it lost the lucrative GBN contract to MTN. Having implemented phases 1 and 2 of the project, there was an expectation it would also be awarded the third phase, but this did not happen.
Altron Nexus was first awarded a R1.2bn contract in 2014 to build a 1,600km high-speed fibreoptic network in Gauteng as part of the national government’s broadband target to achieve full connectivity in the province by 2030.
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