South African Business 2023

OVERVIEW
ICT
Government’s latest mobile contract is shared by four companies.
As of 2021, National Treasury has appointed four companies
as service providers to government, through its new mobile
communication services contract, known as RT15-2021. The
contract covers all entities of the state and is expected to
allow for significant cost saving through better controls.
The contract, which was previously held by Vodacom, is
now shared between Cell C, MTN, Telkom and Vodacom. The
transversal contract is for uncapped data for different categories
of employees and includes mobile devices for packages from
all service providers. Nearly 450 organs of state participated in
the previous contract. This included 38 national departments, 99
provincial departments, 106 local government departments and
207 other state institutions.
South Africa has not only been home to many pioneering
banking apps on mobile phones, but the country’s operators
continue to offer unprecedented innovation and levels of
service. Arthur Goldstuck noted these trends in September 2022,
further pointing out that the Reserve Bank will also speed up
EFTs between banks with the introduction of a Rapid Payments
Programme. Bank Zero not only uses biometric authentication
for logging in, but offers zero-cost banking. Both MTN and
Vodacom are offering much more sophisticated apps than when
they first ventured into fintech: MTN MoMo has diverse offerings
and VodaPay encompasses payment, lending, insurance and
cash for emergencies.
Invicta Holdings, an investment holdings and management
company, has expanded into the fibre field at a time when working
from home has massively increased the demand for data. Invicta
acquired Dartcom Group for R500-million, giving it a presence in the
ONLINE RESOURCES
Business Process Enabling SA: www.bpesa.org.za
Independent Communications Authority: www.icasa.org.za
Technology Innovation Agency: www.tia.org.za
Credit: Caspir Camille
Ruben on Unsplash
SECTOR INSIGHT
South African banking
apps are world class.
distribution of communication
and renewable technologies
and the manufacture of fibre
optic cables (under licence
from Japan). As South Africa
joins the global trend towards
online shopping and with the
first networks rolling out 5G in
2020, data centres are going up
all over the country. The latest
to join the trend is software
company Oracle which has
chosen Johannesburg as the
headquarters of its African cloud
region. All of the company’s
cloud regions worldwide will be
100% powered by renewable
energy by 2025.
Teraco stores data in
Johannesburg, Durban and
Cape Town. A second 30MW
site is under construction in
Brackenfell to complement the
existing facility in Rondebosch.
Africa Data Centre (ADC), part of
the Liquid Telecom Group, has
purchased a Tier IV data centre
in Johannesburg, previously
used by Standard Bank.
The Council for Scientific
and Industrial Research (CSIR)
in Pretoria will host a new
body aimed at preparing South
Africa for the Fourth Industrial
Revolution (4IR), the South
African Affiliate Centre of the
World Economic Forum. ■
SOUTH AFRICAN BUSINESS 2023
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