South Africa has two digital ID apps under construction at the same time. SITA is building the Citizen Super App. A separate team in the Presidency is building MyMzansi.

Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Communications has flagged delays on the SITA project, noting the agency's customer satisfaction and reputational problems have weakened confidence in its role as the state's preferred ICT provider. What the two apps have to do with each other is unclear.

The feature lists are the problem. SITA's proof of concept, shown at GovTech 2025 by then acting managing director Gopal Reddy, promised a One ID single sign-on, facial recognition and QR verification, online applications for birth certificates, grants and police clearances, digital matric certificates, e-permits, e-recruitment, queue management, a digital indigent register and payment integration.

MyMzansi, outlined by Solly Malatsi in his 2025 Digital Transformation Roadmap, promises a single zero-rated platform for all government services alongside a digital identity system, and he demonstrated driving licence renewal on a prototype at the Global DPI Summit. MyBroadband describes the two as almost identical.

MyMzansi's first phase is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2027, and it is the platform Home Affairs names in the draft digital ID regulations we covered this month, which put verifiable credentials in 2027/28. The committee has asked Malatsi for timelines, milestones and adoption targets within six months.

MyBroadband reported the duplication and the committee's finding that departmental utilisation of SITA services fell short of target during the reporting period. SITA described the Citizen Super App as an integrated digital gateway for citizens when it unveiled the pilot, and has said little publicly since. TechCentral set out Home Affairs' own timeline, which puts verifiable credentials in a mobile wallet only from 2027/2028.

The committee's concern is not simply that SITA is slow on one app. It is that confidence in SITA as the state's ICT provider is eroding, and we saw the practical version of that this week, when SITA refused SAPS permission to advertise its body camera tender independently, took the process over, and still has not advertised it.

The same agency is now late on an app meant to carry your digital identity, while the Presidency builds its own version with the same features, and it is MyMzansi that the draft regulations actually name.

If you are building anything that will need to verify a South African, plan around bank-branch smart ID and manual checks well into 2028. Two apps racing to do one job is not twice the chance of either arriving.

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