An announcement posted on the ZA NiC page states that no new .za.net or .za.org registrations will be accepted after October 31, 2012.
A (blatant) copy/paste explains their reasoning:
The primary reason for starting this project in 1998 was to provide an affordable alternative to the domain name prices of the time. Back in the late ’90s a .com domain name could easly set you back as much as $100! Today the Internet is a very different place with a .com domain being available for as little as around $8. Even in the primary market we served (South Africa), co.za domains are just R50 per year and org.za domains are free for non-profit organisations.
Unfortunately just as the Internet has become a better place (cheaper!) it has also become a worse place in the last 14 years. Today the admin overhead of managing domain names registered purely for spam or scamming purposes has made running a free, community serving project such as ZA NiC just not fun anymore. And that is our secondary reason for ceasing new registrations.
Just because we will no longer be taking new registrations, it does NOT mean any existing domains will cease to function. Domains registered before 31/10/2012, with valid and responding nameservers, will continue to be served by us indefinitely. The modification system for keeping contact and domain name details up to date will also continue to work as it does today.
Despite the statement that existing domain names will be left alone, the announcement means that the future availability of this site’s domain name in the future is no longer guaranteed. As such… any suggestions for an alternative name, just in case? (Some research indicates that the .nom.za domain namespace is designed for personal names of South African entities, so something in there would be my first choice.)