South African free Wi-Fi project mentioned in Epstein Files
Project Isizwe and its founder, Alan Knott-Craig Jr., appear in the latest cache of Epstein Files in emails sent in 2014 to help arrange a weeklong trip to Africa for the disgraced financier’s assistant.
The U.S. Department of Justice recently published an additional 3 million pages collected in its case against Jeffrey Epstein, hundreds of which mention South Africans and local organisations.
In an email sent on 10 July 2014 to a contact, whose name was redacted, Epstein said that his assistant would like to spend a week in Africa the following month to help “a foundation project”.
Epstein asked the contact to come up with “safe, important ideas”, who responded with three options, including the free Wi-Fi initiative headquartered in Stellenbosch, which they misspelt “Project Ishizwe”.
The contact said Epstein’s assistant would need technical know-how or mobile experience and told the notorious socialite that Project Isizwe’s founder was Alan Knott-Craig’s son.
Knott Craig Sr. was the founding CEO of Vodacom and later the CEO of Cell C. He suffered a stroke in November 2013 and briefly returned as an executive board member of Cell C in May 2014 before retiring.
His son and namesake had served as the CEO of iBurst and Mxit. After his ouster from Mxit in 2012, Knott-Craig founded Project Isizwe.
On 22 July 2014, Epstein was sent a follow-up email with a proposed itinerary for his assistant’s trip to South Africa, Zimbabwe, Uganda, and Ghana.
It is unconfirmed whether this email came from the same person he initially contacted about ideas for the trip, as the senders’ names are all redacted, along with the assistant’s.
Regardless, the proposed itinerary includes three days in Cape Town. She was to spend two days watching how an international federation of slum-dweller organisations operates, and the third with Knott-Craig.
“Project Ishizwe [sic] is working to provide cities with free Wi-Fi in slums,” the itinerary stated.
“View their technical developments as well as participate in discussions surrounding roll-out with governments and telecoms around Southern Africa.”
According to the proposed itinerary, Epstein’s assistant would have been hosted by Alan Knott-Craig Jr. himself on 12 August 2014.
Knott-Craig denies link to Epstein
MyBroadband contacted Knott-Craig for comment and asked whether he recalled hosting a woman from the U.S., linked to Jeffrey Epstein, for a day at Project Isizwe in August 2014.
Knott-Craig expressed surprise to hear he was mentioned in Epstein’s emails at all. “In a million years, I never thought I’d get a question like this,” he said.
“There is absolutely no way we were linked. I think the CEO of Project Isizwe at the time was Zahir Khan. I’ll pass your email on to him.”
Knott-Craig also wondered whether another organisation might have used the word Isizwe. However, it seems unlikely that there was another Isizwe in Stellenbosch with a founder named Alan Knott-Craig.
Project Isiziwe was founded in 2013 following an earlier abortive attempt to launch a free Wi-Fi project in Stellenbosch.
Knott-Craig established Project Isizwe as a non-profit organisation that brings free Wi-Fi to rural communities and townships.
Its very first project was to build and operate a free Wi-Fi network in the greater Pretoria area for the Tshwane metropolitan municipality.
South Africa’s current Minister of Electricity and Energy, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, was the executive mayor of Tshwane at the time.
The project’s goal was to blanket Pretoria with free Wi-Fi coverage in public areas. It had established 921 free Internet zones across these locations by 2016.
Each user could use up to 1GB of data on the network daily, with speeds advertised at 15Mbps.
People with limited home Internet connectivity — including students — benefited from the project.
Collapse of Tshwane Free Wi-Fi and future of Project Isizwe
However, when MyBroadband returned to test the service in 2017, it was performing well below its promised speeds.
The Democratic Alliance also raised concerns that the project had racked up a bill of R320 million, including R75 million for value-added services, amounting to an effective cost of around R305,000 per hotspot.
Project Isizwe’s contract was not renewed, and Tshwane appointed another company to run the initiative, which relaunched the free Wi-Fi network in September 2018.
Subsequent tests in Pretoria revealed that the city’s free Wi-Fi infrastructure had all but collapsed. When MyBroadband tested the network in 2024, several hotspots were not functioning.
Since losing the Tswhane contract, Project Isizwe has continued offering free Wi-Fi to schools and underserved communities on behalf of donors.
According to its website, it has over a million users connected to its network across 137 schools, 275 classrooms, and over 33 communities.
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