The organisers of the 2022 Africa Aerospace and Defence (AAD) expo have released the final figures for participation and attendance which show significantly fewer trade visitors and exhibitors at Africa’s most prestigious biennial defence exhibition than in 2018.
In a media release, the organisers said that despite the four-year break since the last exhibition in 2018, and the time challenges to organize the event in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, they were proud to have staged another signature event. The 2020 edition was cancelled because of the pandemic.
AAD 2022, held at Waterkloof Air Force Base in Pretoria, drew 203 exhibitors from 24 countries and over 23 000 trade visitors from 76 countries. There were 51 official delegations from 29 countries. The two-day airshow which was open to members of the public saw 51 228 visitors.
In 2018, there were 415 exhibitors from 40 countries, 71 official delegations and over 32 000 trade visitors during the three trade days. The airshow attracted at least 55 000 visitors.
Among some of the firsts at the 2022 AAD were flying displays of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) as well as several new international conference participants. The United Nations was a first-time participant in the UAV conference, the University of Hungary in the Counter-Terrorism, Technology and Development in Africa conference, and the American space agency, NASA, in the General Aviation conference.
Voicing his feelings after walking around a visibly smaller and quieter display area during the exhibition, Ivor Ichikowitz – founder and executive chairman of Paramount Group – said he was personally saddened as he had the sense that South Africa had reached a point where the capabilities and innovations that the country was once noted for, had begun to migrate because government had not paid proper attention to the defence industry.
He lamented: “At a point, South Africa was considered to be in the top ten innovators in the global aerospace and defence industry. The country was the world leader in mine-protected armoured vehicles, the world leader in terms of sub-systems for aircraft – but unfortunately, because government has never seen the defence industry as strategic to the growth and development of the economy a lot of that capability has migrated out of South Africa. There is no domestic market in South Africa.”
He indicated that if the government was indeed serious about supporting the industry there needed to be engagement with the industry to form partnerships between the private and public sectors. He said it is imperative that an entity like Denel is enabled not only to survive, but to also flourish; not as a competitor to the private sector, but as a partner. Denel, once highly regarded internationally, was brought to its knees as a result of state capture and corruption.
There also needed to be investment in human capital in the defence force, through the university system and enhance organisations like the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), he said. And the private sector has to be able to access assets like the Alkantpan weapons test range, and the Gerotek vehicle testing facility. Ichikowitz said Paramount is having to test outside South Africa – because they can’t access these facilities because they have fallen into disrepair.
He said there must be political support behind the defence industry, citing the example of the British Ministry of Defence which had declared support for their whole defence industry. He stressed the defence industry cannot exist in a country without government support at every single level. Most importantly the capabilities of the industry needed to be scrutinized to identify where there are world-class, leading technologies that are already supported, developed, and manufactured by South Africa so they could be purchased and put into service. That would give the South African National Defence Force the ability to modernise, upgrade and create capability much more cost-effectively than buying in foreign systems.
As an example, he cited his own company Paramount, a 30-year-old company which has never had a domestic market. He said: “We do less than three percent of our total turnover in SA and that is only as a result of legacy businesses acquired along the way. We work in 40 countries around the world – we are a major supplier to at least 25 of those but have never sold a major system in SA – not because we have not tried.”
The African Defence Review’s John Stupart, who also attended the exhibition, largely agreed with Ichikowitz that the significantly smaller event clearly illustrated the poverty in the defence industry in South Africa. In an email, he noted that Covid and the general economic downturn certainly exacerbated the situation, adding that the revenue service SARS and customs had made bringing in any display items a costly, duty-laden experience, which also discouraged foreign exhibitors. The decline of Denel and the Department of Defence’s shrinking budget meant there is no major acquisitions programme in South Africa, nor any real hope of one in the medium-term future. Without this, he questioned what reason there was to make a costly business trip all the way to South Africa.
Stupart was particularly critical that the organisers had allowed Russia to exhibit arms this year, following its invasion of Ukraine in February. He said: “We may be friendly towards Russia despite its invasion of Ukraine but allowing it to showcase and market the weapons it is actively using against Ukrainian civilians and civilian infrastructure is, frankly, one of the darkest blots on this country’s 2022 timeline.”
Looking ahead, he said AAD needs to make hard decisions about its future and assess whether this is even the right format for a defence exhibition. He noted 2024 could well not take place if the organisers are honest about the deplorable state of the South African defence industry. “The airshow always brings in the crowds and makes for great PR, but if there are no big business items propping up the weekend, the number and variety of aircraft even flying in the show will decline along with AAD,” he said.
The 12 edition of Africa Aerospace and Defence is expected to take place at Waterkloof Air Force Base from 18 to 22 September 2024.
