SA ICT Spend in Local Government 2023

This report forms part of BMIT’s suite of reports on SA ICT expenditure in government.

BMIT Trilogy of SA Government ICT Spend Reports

This report examines the municipal, or local tiers of government, overall sizing of all tiers of local government ICT spend is assessed. Segmentation of the data is provided according to the BMIT ICT definitions of communications and IT hardware, software and services.

Research methodology

This report is the outcome of secondary research techniques and sources, as follows:

The February 2023 Budget for municipal government – both published Votes and unpublished audited and unaudited ICT expenditure data provided by National Treasury.
Follow up engagement with National Treasury
A wide variety of resources, utilised in the course of secondary research, including Statistics SA, and ICT industry news sources.
BMIT’s internal research database and experience.

Notes:

BMIT appreciates the cooperation from National Treasury in releasing unpublished, detailed data on audited ICT spend for the past five years up to and including financial year 2022/23, as well as forecast estimates for the MTEF period, which enables BMIT to present as accurate as possible a picture of both the size of government ICT expenditure and the specific ICT categories of spend.
National Treasury has drawn BMIT’s attention to the fact that many municipal accounting staff are still struggling with the requirements of MSCOA (the accounting standards for municipalities), adherence to which has recently been made compulsory. These technical problems may lead to misallocations. For example, there was one metro and 10 local municipalities which recorded zero ICT expenditure for 2022/23.
BMIT has made every effort to identify problems, but in the light of the questions raised by both Treasury and the Auditor-General regarding the state of municipal finances, BMIT would advise clients to accept the municipal data as indicative rather than precise.

Table of Content

Introduction
BMIT ICT category segmentation
Research methodology

Economic Overview

GDP and economic prospects for South Africa
Government’s role in the economy

The state of local Government

Auditor-General (AGSA): report on local government for FY 2021/22
AGSA’s comments regarding the state of ICT in local government

Local Government ICT Spend

Total local government ICT spend, of metros, district and local municipalities.
Total local government ICT spend, of metros and local municipalities, by category.
Summary of municipal ICT spend, 2021/22 – 2024/25
Local government ICT spend for 246 municipalities, comprising 7 metros, 22 secondary cities, 44 district municipalities, and 173 local municipalities.

Metros ICT Spend

ICT spend by the eight metros for 2022/23
Metros ICT sub-sector spend.
Actual ICT spend.

District Municipalities

District municipalities spend.
District municipal ICT spend by sub-sector.

Major Secondary Cities

Major secondary cities spend.
ICT spend by category.
Secondary cities’ ICT spend.

Local Municipalities

Local Municipalities spend.
ICT spend, by category.

Related Research:

BMIT SA ICT Spend in National and Provincial Government 2023
BMIT Overview of State-Owned Enterprises in South Africa 2023

Research team

The team for this research Penny Smith, Brian Neilson, and Christopher Geerdts. This team has extensive sector experience in this field, having conducted these studies annually for more than a decade.

Further information

For further information and details on how to subscribe to this research please contact Anita Mathews |011 540 8000 | 082 466 2317 | anita@bmit.africa