The eyes and ears of the wider South African defence and security sector will most likely be at Armscor’s Gerotek facility on Wednesday and Thursday next week.
The vehicle testing facility and conference centre west of Pretoria will host what the organisers bill as a Defence Demo Day and Sovereign Security Conference.
The Demonstration Day on 20 September has demonstrations set to range from military and security vehicles in the form of the OTT Solutions Puma, Milkor 4×4, Twiga Nyathi, ICP Reva X and the Springbuck, with heavy-duty towing courtesy Miller Africa also on the programme.
The demonstrations of weapons – by Denel and Milkor – round out the defence component of the demonstration day programme. Aselsan will showcase border management capabilities and Braveheart will show sniffer dogs in action.
Before the demonstrations kick off, James Kerr of Orion Consulting will provide an overview of the South African defence industry, covering market size and trends, budget allocation, regulations, key acquisitions, competitive landscape and forecast.
Some speakers lined up for the Sovereign Security Conference include National Commissioner, Border Management Authority (BMA) Dr Michael Masiapato (looking at the BMA roll-out); Section Head Border Policing, South African Police Service David Chilembe (examining ways to improve border security); previous SA National Defence Force Chief of Staff Lindile Yam (providing an overview of global, continental and national security); and Ratilal Rowji, GC2T Chief Executive (technology applications and the role of command and control technologies for national security).
Other topics up for discussion range from illegal migration and cross-border crimes to illegal mining by zama zamas, cybersecurity and cybercrime along with civil and social unrest.
