After just under a year ago establishing its Integrated Systems & Maritime (ISM) division, South African State-owned aerospace and defence technology conglomerate Denel plans to officially launch the new business at the upcoming Maritime Africa conference and exhibition, in Cape Town, next month.

Denel ISM CEO Ismail Dockrat, who would present at the event, said the new division was intended to diversify Denel into a range of new capabilities and markets, one of which was the maritime market.

“The other two markets under Denel ISM are sovereign technologies and national safety and security. In terms of sovereign technologies, we are responsible for areas such as command and control, electronic warfare, secure communications and integrated systems. 

“In the safety and security space, we are engaging with clients such as the South African Police Service, Airports Company of South Africa, the Border Management Agency and the National Disaster Management Centre and are developing our value proposition within these important markets,” he held.

Dockrat further pointed to the fact that Denel had not, historically, had as strong a relationship with the South African Navy as it had with the South African Air Force and Army and that government’s recent Defence Review had called on the parastatal to play a stronger role in the maritime environment.

“Our key objective in the next year is to become a strategic partner to the South African Navy and play a broader role in terms of supporting other navies in the region, as well as working with the South African shipbuilding and ship repair industry to grow the industry to the benefit of everybody in that sector,” he commented, adding that government’s Operation Phakisa would present further opportunities in the domestic maritime industry.

Denel, meanwhile, noted in a statement on Monday that Dockrat would address delegates at the Maritime Africa conference on subregional cooperation in the construction and equipping of vessels and installations in Africa, focusing also on the role played by Denel in this space.

“We have very strong systems integration, programme management and integrated logistics support capabilities and we think that is a gap in the market in this context.

“Denel is not going into the business of building ships; we know there are strong players in the industry that we can partner with, both locally but also globally. We are there to form partnerships with others and to offer our value proposition,” he remarked.