Home Affairs Applies For Divorce From Sita

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".

"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.