Ahead of Denel “officially” becoming the responsibility of the South African Department of Defence (DoD), the board of the State-owned enterprise (SOE) met its soon to be “overseer” in the form of Minister Angie Motshekga.
The meeting last Friday (14 March) was to, according to a statement from the Ministry of Defence, was to discuss the “strategic migration of Denel operations to the Department of Defence (D0D)”.
“The move [of Denel] is in direct alignment with the goals outlined in the President’s State of the Nation Address (SONA), which emphasised driving economic growth and job creation”.
“Integrating Denel with the DoD,” the statement has it, “aims to streamline defense production and enhance technological capabilities”. Denel chair Gloria Serobe and Chief Executive Tsepo Monaheng as well as a number of directors and senior management attended last week’s meeting.
The move of Denel – and other SOEs – to what a Presidential proclamation said was “line function ministries” post last June’s national and provincial elections came with the dissolution of the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE), previously the shareholder (government) representative. Other SOEs involved are Eskom and SAA.
That it only became effective in the fourth month of this year was not well-known as Democratic Alliance (DA) National Council of Provinces (NCOP) Member of Parliament (MP) Nicholas Gotsell found out when posing a Parliamentary question to Motshekga In January.
She informed him that Denel would only become her responsibility as from 1 April this year and she could not reply to his question regarding apparent misappropriation of Denel intellectual property as a result.
Commenting on Motshekga’s meeting with Denel, defence expert Dean Wingrin said, “I’m happy that Denel is home under the Department of Defence, but the only thing that can save Denel is orders from the SA National Defence Force. Hedging the home country order products gives comfort to foreign buyers. Hope it’s not too late.”
Responding to Wingrin, Mothsekga’s office said “it’s not too late,” without going into further detail.
