A day before President Cyril Ramaphosa is set to deliver the State of the Nation Address (SoNA), key national government websites across the country - including Parliament, those of several key departments and the SA Police Service - had crashed due to "infrastructure damage".

State Information Technology Agency (SITA) spokesperson Tlali Tlali told News24 that they were aware the websites were down on Wednesday afternoon. 

"Part of the information we have received is that there was infrastructure damage. The infrastructure was in the vicinity of incidents of unrest. For the moment we are unable to draw a direct link… between the damage and the protest," he said. 

"However, teams have been dispatched… and once the teams have done their inspection, it can be pointed out whether the damage was deliberate or collateral damage from the unrest."

The teams will also work on bringing the sites back online.  

It was not immediately clear where the protest and damaged infrastructure had occurred.