South Africa’s R744,000 app store is dead

The Department of Communications and Digital Technologies’ (DCDT’s) Digitech website, which cost R744,000 to build, has been unreachable for nearly two months.

Attempting to navigate to the web page returns a “this site can’t be reached” error message, which says the server unexpectedly closed the connection.

The department did not respond to questions about the downtime.

MyBroadband first reported about the outage in late June 2024, when the platform had been unavailable for at least two weeks.

The start of the outage coincided with several government websites going down, such as SANews, Labour.gov.za, and DCDT.gov.za. However, these sites have since returned, while the Digitech website is still unavailable.

According to the State Information Technology Agency, the temporary outage of these sites resulted from unstable primary Internet connections at its Centurion and Cape Town points of presence.

It said its service provider had repaired a bend in a fibre optic cable connecting to the Cape Town point of presence and stabilised the Centurion link.

“Service improvement discussions are currently taking place between SITA and the Internet Service Provider,” it said.

First launched by former communications minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni in May 2022, the platform is designed to serve as a digital distribution service for local apps and platforms.

It is developed, maintained, and operated solely by the South African government.

Ntshavheni said the platform would allow South Africans to browse and download apps from the platform.

However, users could still not download apps and the platform was fraught with errors even before the outage.

The department received harsh criticism over the platform shortly after it launched.

Former Democratic Alliance (DA) spokesperson on communications and digital technologies and current communications minister, Solly Malatsi, said the website fell woefully short of what the department had promised.

“This project is ominously reminiscent of the Free State website scandal in 2013 when it transpired that the Free State government had spent R40m on its website,” he said.

“National Treasury eventually called for criminal charges to be laid against those involved in tenders awarded to a development company that was awarded the tender for the site.”

Since its launch, it has been redesigned twice, with the most recent update coming in May 2024. The upgrades primarily related to the website’s visual elements, and little was done to improve its functionality.

The design changes included transitioning to a colour scheme to match the South African government’s colour scheme, with new banners and headings.

However, other elements of the platform, such as the digital products portal, were a mess. The portal often showed iconless listings and various error messages. 

The site also aimed to promote locally developed products and apps through its “marketplace” section but failed to provide complete descriptions or any way to purchase or download the products.

A year after its launch, the platform’s first redesign raised eyebrows, with the department spending R744,000 to complete it.

Then-communications minister Mondli Gungubele revealed the amount in response to parliamentary questions from DA MP Dianne Kohler Barnard.

He said the old website didn’t meet the specifications promised by the DCDT and confirmed that the redesigned site went live on 30 March 2023.

“The security of the new Digitech site has been enhanced, and new design has been implemented,” said Gungubele.

Security enhancements were necessary because the original Digitech site allowed anyone to register and add a product to the platform.

Products could then be associated with a YouTube video, which was added to a grid in the Digitech “marketplace.”

When South Africa’s technical community discovered the vulnerability, they soon poked fun at the site by adding irrelevant videos to the marketplace, including the timeless Rickroll.