Following a meeting with the South African Aerospace, Maritime and Defence Industries Association (AMD), Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Defence has expressed serious concern about the functioning of the National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC) and the Directorate for Conventional Arms Control (DCAC). AMD explained the major challenges created for its member companies by failures by the NCACC and DCAC.

“It is unacceptable that the South African defence industry continues to suffer under the weight of irregular meetings by the NCACC, which make it difficult to approve applications, leading to loss of business,” highlighted committee co-chairperson Phiroane Phala. “The fact that defence industry businesses are forced to shut down, resulting in job losses, is an indictment on the NCACC and must be resolved urgently.”

Failures and inefficiencies in the two regulatory bodies have caused South African defence and aerospace companies to lose contracts. Even when contracts aren’t lost, late-delivery penalties have to be paid. The reputation of the businesses concerned, indeed of the entire South African aerospace and defence industry, is damaged. In consequence, some companies have relocated offshore.

“The longstanding challenges at the NCACC and the DCAC directly undermine the industry’s ability to compete in a highly competitive global environment,” he pointed out. “This not only leads to job losses, but also erodes intellectual capacity within the industry, as critical skills are lost to international competitors.”

The committee expressed alarm that, although the DCAC had repeatedly assured that it was improving its IT systems, to streamline permit application processes, no improvements had in fact taken place. The agency continued to suffer from staff shortages and the use of incompatible IT systems. And it still did not have a permanent director (the committee called for the completion of the appointment process). Moreover, there was no formal platform to permit a structured relationship between the industry and the regulator.

“A formal platform to ventilate impediments is necessary to resolve challenges before they become barriers to effectiveness,” stressed committee co-chairperson Dr Malusi Gigaba. “The committee calls on the chairperson of the NCACC to urgently revive and finalise a process initiated by the former chairperson.”

The committee has decided to urgently summon both the NCACC and DCAC to appear before it, in a physical meeting, scheduled for March 6. The topic will be their failure so far to implement reforms that they had previously promised.

“We do not want to be complicit in these challenges,” stated Phala. “We cannot continue discussing the same issues without arriving at a cogent and implementable solution.”

The committee is open to a review of the country’s regulatory framework for the trade in arms. But any such review will have to be in line with international arms control standards and the spirit and requirements of the National Conventional Arms Control Act.