Runtime State

Notes on South African technology policy and governance.


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Institutions · May 2026

The Research Institution That Learned to Invoice

CSIR was established to produce innovation South Africa cannot buy. It learned instead to produce consulting South Africa will pay for. These are different activities, and only one of them compounds.

Citizens, Infrastructure, and Knowledge in South Africa's Draft AI Policy

A selective adaptation layered onto a substantially imported architecture. It reads global and annotates local.

Reading the Public Service Amendment Act Against the Auditor-General's Books

The Act builds new plumbing. The Auditor-General's numbers describe the pressure the plumbing must survive.

Five Years of Cyber Incidents Inside South Africa's Government

Nine confirmed intrusions across justice, logistics, defence, health, and finance. This is a systemic resilience problem, not a run of isolated incidents.

SITA, Trapped Between Responsibility and Authority

SITA is repeatedly asked to guarantee continuity for systems the state depends on, without being empowered to own, resolve, or terminate them.

Why I Started Runtime State

A small reading practice on South African governance, written from the outside in, and why it's worth keeping.