South Africa’s regulator for the .za namespace, the .ZA Domain Name Authority (ZADNA), whose mandate is to administer and manage the .za namespace, is gearing up to announce a new registry operator.
In a statement, the regulator says in the past six months, ZADNA has been engaged in a procurement process of identifying a service provider to be contracted to provide registry services for co.za, web.za, net.za and org.za second-level domains.
ZADNA notes it has finalised the evaluation process, which was a critical component of identifying a capable service provider.
Molehe Wesi, CEO of ZADNA, says the organisation is determined to make the appointment of the new registry operator timeously without any adverse impact on registrars and registrants.
“We are confident that we will find a capable registry operator among the service providers that responded,” says Wesi, adding that “while we are prioritising the process of appointing a suitable organisation, we also have a responsibility to ensure we follow our internal procurement processes.”
ZADNA says is currently at the advanced stage of the final checkpoints of the procurement process. It adds that it received applications from both local and international bidders, and the list of all applicants can be viewed here.
