SITA and government IT: how departments buy technology
SITA, the State Information Technology Agency, is the state-owned company that runs shared IT for South African government departments and buys technology on their behalf under the SITA Act. This guide explains how SITA, its transversal contracts and its bids work, and where Arke Technologies, a Johannesburg IT company, fits.
What is SITA?
Last reviewed: September 2026.
SITA stands for the State Information Technology Agency. The State Information Technology Agency Act 88 of 1998 (the SITA Act) provided for it, and it began operating in 1999 to consolidate the state's IT resources, save through scale and make government systems work together (sita.co.za, September 2026). In practice SITA in South Africa is the state's own IT company, building, running and buying technology for national and provincial government.
The Act named the company State Information Technology Agency (Pty) Ltd; under the Companies Act of 2008 it trades as SITA SOC Ltd, the form for state-owned companies.
| SITA at a glance | |
|---|---|
| Full name | State Information Technology Agency SOC Ltd (SITA) |
| Governing law | SITA Act 88 of 1998, amended in 2002, and the SITA regulations |
| Reports to | Department of Communications and Digital Technologies |
| Head office | 459 Tsitsa Street, Erasmuskloof, Pretoria |
| Provinces | Provincial teams in all nine provinces |
| Website | sita.co.za (contact numbers, offices, tenders and requests for quotation) |
SITA registration, accreditation and certification
Registration. Suppliers start on National Treasury's Central Supplier Database (CSD), which SITA treats as the single source of supplier information; its 2026 invitations also required submission through its ERP (Oracle) supplier portal. See our CSD registration guide.- Invitations. SITA publishes bid and RFQ invitations and results on its website and on National Treasury's eTender portal.
- Accreditation. "SITA accreditation" means a supplier won a place on a transversal contract, for named products and provinces, through that contract's bid.
- Certification. A SITA certificate applies to a product, not a company: goods sold on a transversal contract must be SITA-certified.
- Name and logo. A supplier displaying the SITA logo is not thereby accredited; ask for the contract number and check SITA's list.
Where Arke Technologies fits
Arke Technologies (Pty) Ltd is an IT company headquartered in Johannesburg. We are not SITA, do not act for it and do not claim SITA accreditation or a transversal contract, so the SITA logo never appears on our material. If a purchase belongs on a transversal contract, we will say so. Where a requirement goes to open bid or quotation, or you buy under your own policy, we compete on merit.
What we bring to public-sector IT:
- Cybersecurity for government: identity, email and Microsoft 365 hardening, monitoring and POPIA.
- Municipal revenue enhancement: reconciling billing, metering and valuation data.
- SARS and CIPC integrations and modernisation of legacy systems.
- An ITIL-aligned service desk, or co-managed IT beside your IT unit.
- Servers, storage and networking, which RFB 740 excludes, through our trading division Server Hub (serverhub.co.za (opens serverhub.co.za)), quoted through whichever route your rules require, with a dated source behind every priced line.
If we help write a specification, we declare it in writing, because your rules may then bar us from bidding. We work across South Africa from Johannesburg, including Pretoria and Centurion, home to SITA's head office.
An engagement runs in six steps: discovery, assessment, a written proposal, an SLA that fixes scope and exclusions and sets P1 to P4 priorities, with response and resolution targets agreed to your needs, onboarding against a documented baseline, and a monthly service review and report. The proposal, the SLA, the baseline and each monthly report are documents your audit file can hold.
Governance, compliance and procurement documents
- PFMA and MFMA. We work to their procurement and reporting disciplines, with audit-ready documentation.
- King IV. Principle 12 shapes our board reporting; see King IV and technology governance.
- POPIA and PAIA. Our Information Officer is designated under both Acts. Security controls are aligned with ISO/IEC 27001 and the NIST Cybersecurity Framework; we work to these frameworks rather than hold certification.
- Service management. ITIL-aligned incident, request, problem and change management; SLA reporting; a monthly service review and report; a named service lead, escalation paths and change control.
- Procurement fit. Level 1 B-BBEE contributor, giving 135% procurement recognition (sworn affidavit available on request); registered since 2017; company documents and a bank confirmation letter on request; SBD forms completed when required. Our CSD supplier number and SARS tax compliance status are available on request. Buy through a proposal and SLA, a purchase order, or a quotation or bid response. See procurement and compliance.
- Continuity. One contract, one accountable team, working on our SLA clock; every remote session is approved and logged, and everyone with access to your systems is bound by confidentiality and our security controls. On exit you keep your data, credentials and documentation.