South Africa’s arms export regulator sleeps, as world goes to war

In February, the industry association representing local arms companies implored both President Cyril Ramaphosa and parliament to intervene in a deepening “crisis” at the arms export regulator, the National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC), and its Directorate for Conventional Arms Control.

This association, the Aerospace, Maritime and Defence Industries Association, warned that the sector is losing millions as the directorate’s lack of capacity and the failure of the NCACC to meet monthly have led to delays in permits being granted for weapons exports.

Though the NCACC is required to meet every month, it last met in October 2025 – and no applications for permits have been heard since then.

Yet, the politicians meant to exercise oversight also seem to be asleep at the wheel.

Parliament’s joint standing committee on defence summoned Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, minister in the presidency and chair of the NCACC, to appear before it to address these issues. But she failed to pitch up at a scheduled meeting in March, much to the committee’s irritation.

The association says the NCACC’s failures mean that South Africa’s arms industry is missing out on the global surge in demand for weapons as major conflicts across the world surge. This was true even before a new regional war began in the Middle East two weeks ago, after the US and Israel attacked Iran.

More remarkably, some arms companies have reportedly threatened to start exporting weapons without permits to avoid losing out on contracts, even though this is a criminal offence.

But this threat goes to the heart of the real consequences of the failure of the NCACC: that there is no functioning and resourced regulator to scrutinise and provide oversight of the destination and use of weapons exported from South Africa.

Selling arms isn’t just any trade

The arms industry likes to speak about the NCACC as if its sole purpose is to sign off on permits and facilitate the unfettered export of South African weapons.

Yet the NCACC is designed to play a much larger, and more crucial, role in controlling and regulating weapons exports. For instance, it can refuse to issue permits if it believes there is a risk that the exported weapons might be diverted to other parties, escalate conflicts, or be used to commit human rights violations or war crimes.

This watchdog institution was set up as a direct response to South Africa’s apartheid history – where the state’s secretive weapons industry bred corruption and sent weapons into wars around the globe. Sadly, the NCACC has failed to fulfil this vital mandate.

In 2021, Open Secrets released a report showing that mortars likely made in South Africa were found at the site of an attack on civilians in Yemen. South Africa-based Rheinmetall Denel Munition regularly supplied both the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia with these and other munitions. Both countries were accused of committing war crimes in Yemen, but the NCACC continued to approve export permits.

Also in 2021, Open Secrets and the Southern Africa Litigation Centre brought a legal application to review these permits. In another sign of the dysfunction at the NCACC, it has yet to file a record of how these permits were granted, despite a court order compelling it to do so nearly five years ago.

Denel-made armoured vehicles have also been identified in Yemen, being used by local militias, despite those vehicles being exported to the UAE. At the time, the NCACC admitted that it lacked the capacity to actually ensure that South African-exported weapons were not being diverted to third parties.

Today, South African arms companies still regularly export weapons to the UAE and Saudi Arabia. This is despite claims that these weapons have been diverted to other conflicts, and the fact the UAE is implicated in arming the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan during an ongoing genocide.

South African arms companies also export to Nato countries like Germany, which are arming the Israeli war machine and sending weapons to Ukraine. At the least, South African weapons are being used to replace stockpiles depleted during these wars.

This is why the NCACC’s failure is so lamentable, and significant. In a time of escalating global conflict, it is vital that the regulator scrutinises any application to export weapons – particularly if there is a risk these weapons will worsen conflicts, be diverted to third parties or used in any international crimes.

Instead, the NCACC isn’t doing its job. It fails to meet and engage with the globe’s geopolitical realities and conflicts. And even when it does meet, the evidence suggests it is usually a rubber stamp on the applications that come across its desk.

The case of ICP

The threat by South African arms companies to export arms without permits due to the NCACC’s delays would be illegal, but it is not unheard of.

Last December, after attempts by Integrated Convoy Protection (ICP) to gag publication, Open Secrets revealed that the Pretoria-based arms company had exported at least 100 armoured vehicles to a UAE company, International Golden Group, without obtaining NCACC permits.

The vehicles were supplied in the form of “advanced semi knockdown kits”, which ICP staff flew to the UAE to reassemble into vehicles. These were then sold as Emirati products under the name the “Kasser II” to clients including the Democratic Republic of Congo and Togo.

ICP maintains it did not require permits for these exports, and the NCACC told Open Secrets that the matter had been handed over to the Hawks to investigate.

Yet this is what happens when the regulator isn’t paying attention. The industry is right that the NCACC is in crisis, and hasn’t actually been functioning properly for years.

But the real cost goes far beyond simply economic harm from delayed contracts.

There is now a heightened risk that South Africa will continue to export weapons without proper scrutiny, in violation of our international legal obligations. This risks creating deep reputational damage for the country, and shines an unhelpful spotlight on just how ineffective some of our state institutions have become.

The NCACC was formed to ensure a break from the worst excesses and secrecy of apartheid’s military state. If it is no longer fit for that purpose, it must be urgently reformed, before this ticking bomb explodes on South Africa.

Michael Marchant is the head of investigations at Open Secrets.

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