{"id":627634,"date":"2026-02-03T12:03:58","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T10:03:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=627634"},"modified":"2026-02-03T12:05:02","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T10:05:02","slug":"south-african-free-wi-fi-project-mentioned-in-epstein-files","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wireless\/627634-south-african-free-wi-fi-project-mentioned-in-epstein-files.html","title":{"rendered":"South African free Wi-Fi project mentioned in Epstein Files"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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\u2019s assistant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 \u201ca foundation project\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Epstein asked the contact to come up with \u201csafe, important ideas\u201d, who responded with three options, including the free Wi-Fi initiative headquartered in Stellenbosch, which they misspelt \u201cProject Ishizwe\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The contact said Epstein\u2019s assistant would need technical know-how or mobile experience and told the notorious socialite that Project Isizwe\u2019s founder was Alan Knott-Craig’s son.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a> in May 2014 before retiring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 22 July 2014, Epstein was sent a follow-up email with a proposed itinerary for his assistant\u2019s trip to South Africa, Zimbabwe, Uganda, and Ghana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is unconfirmed whether this email came from the same person he initially contacted about ideas for the trip, as the senders\u2019 names are all redacted, along with the assistant\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cProject Ishizwe [sic] is working to provide cities with free Wi-Fi in slums,\u201d the itinerary stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cView their technical developments as well as participate in discussions surrounding roll-out with governments and telecoms around Southern Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the proposed itinerary, Epstein\u2019s assistant would have been hosted by Alan Knott-Craig Jr. himself on 12 August 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Knott-Craig denies link to Epstein<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Knott-Craig expressed surprise to hear he was mentioned in Epstein\u2019s emails at all. \u201cIn a million years, I never thought I\u2019d get a question like this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is absolutely no way we were linked. I think the CEO of Project Isizwe at the time was Zahir Khan. I\u2019ll pass your email on to him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Project Isiziwe was founded in 2013 following an earlier abortive attempt to launch a free Wi-Fi project in Stellenbosch<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Knott-Craig established Project Isizwe as a non-profit organisation that brings free Wi-Fi to rural communities and townships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its very first project was to build and operate a free Wi-Fi network in the greater Pretoria area for the Tshwane metropolitan municipality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa\u2019s current Minister of Electricity and Energy, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, was the executive mayor of Tshwane at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each user could use up to 1GB of data on the network daily, with speeds advertised at 15Mbps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People with limited home Internet connectivity \u2014 including students \u2014 benefited from the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collapse of Tshwane Free Wi-Fi and future of Project Isizwe<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Project<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

However, when MyBroadband returned to test the service in 2017, it was performing well below its promised speeds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Project Isizwe\u2019s contract was not renewed<\/a>, and Tshwane appointed another company<\/a> to run the initiative, which relaunched the free Wi-Fi network in September 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Subsequent tests in Pretoria revealed that the city\u2019s free Wi-Fi infrastructure had all but collapsed. When MyBroadband tested the network in 2024, several hotspots were not functioning<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since losing the Tswhane contract, Project Isizwe has continued offering free Wi-Fi to schools and underserved communities on behalf of donors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to its website, it has over a million users connected to its network across 137 schools, 275 classrooms, and over 33 communities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Project Isizwe and its founder, Alan Knott-Craig Jr., are mentioned in connection with a trip to Africa that Jeffrey Epstein appeared to be arranging for his assistant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":560497,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40380,13],"tags":[681,309,103128,20971],"class_list":["post-627634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","category-wireless","tag-alan-knott-craig","tag-alan-knott-craig-junior","tag-jeffrey-epstein","tag-project-isizwe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627634"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627634"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":627642,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627634\/revisions\/627642"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}