With terrorism, military conflicts, blockades and piracy threatening the Gulf of Aden and Middle Eastern waters, major shipping companies have chosen to use shipping routes near South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope to better protect their crews and cargo.
However, experts say that the increase in rerouted ship traffic could expose some of South Africa’s most significant maritime security blind spots. Two researchers with the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies, Timothy Walker and Daniela Marggraff, attended a roundtable hosted by the institute at the University of Pretoria on March 31.
The subject — the Cape of Good Hope sea route — drew about 50 researchers, academics and officials. Walker and Marggraff concluded that the government’s ability to properly direct actionable intelligence on maritime security threats remains a major challenge.
“Increased traffic expands the operating space for illicit activities, creating economic and security risks,” they wrote in an April 29 article for the institute. “As vessel numbers rise and routing patterns change, the surveillance and monitoring burdens grow, and scrutiny of shipping becomes more complex. At the same time, information-sharing gaps on nefarious activities persist.”
South Africa’s primary maritime security problems revolve around a prolonged lack of funding for naval and air forces and severe capacity constraints. The surge in ship traffic highlights the vulnerabilities that can be exploited by transnational criminal networks involved in smuggling, trafficking, illegal and unregulated fishing, and other maritime crimes.
Budget shortfalls have strained the South African Navy’s ability to deploy and maintain vessels along the 4,000-kilometer coastline. The Air Force similarly lacks dedicated maritime patrol aircraft.
In 2014, the government launched Operation Phakisa, a blue water economy initiative that aimed to improve maritime safety and security, among other economic goals focused on shipbuilding and improving the efficiency of the country’s largest ports. It began with strong public support but has lost momentum over the years with little to no information on the status of its initiatives.
“As far as I can find out Phakisa is still a thing,” a roundtable participant told DefenceWeb, adding that “my search for updated information and news showed nothing.”
Marggraff and Walker added their voices to those calling for the completion of South Africa’s national maritime security strategy. They also urged the government to empower the Maritime Security Advisory Committee to carry out that strategy as the interdepartmental body responsible for conducting security screenings, monitoring approaching vessels and coordinating national maritime responses.
“Attending to the Cape of Good Hope only in times of crisis reflects a broader undervaluing of the oceans in South Africa’s strategic thinking and a recurring pattern of limited high-level engagement,” they wrote. “Maritime issues must be better anchored at the centre of government through clearer political ownership, supported by an enhanced Maritime Security Advisory Committee that implements a national maritime security strategy and ensures key departments’ consistent participation.”
South Africa should not act alone, Chief of the Navy Vice Adm. Monde Lobese recently said, stressing the need for regional and continental collaboration.
“Contemporary maritime threats are increasingly hybrid in nature, combining conventional and nonconventional tactics,” he said during the sixth iteration of the Sea Power for Africa Symposium, held in Lagos on June 2 and 3. “Therefore, protecting our seas is no longer a narrow national concern but a regional and continental and certainly an indigenous African imperative.”