Johannesburg - The commission phase of the SA Army's new ground-based air defence system is starting, defence manufacturing group Denel said on Thursday.
"The SA Army will now take the equipment on inventory and initiate the commissioning phase of the programme," said Ralph Mills, CEO of Denel Integrated Systems Solutions (DISS), in a statement.
"This will take the system to operational readiness with support from Denel."
DISS, a division of Denel, was established with the sole purpose of supporting the SA National Defence Force to acquire its ground-based air defence system.
Mills said DISS had successfully completed the contractual hardware delivery requirements for the ground-based air defence system.
This followed extensive evaluation and testing conducted last year at the Swartkop Air Field in Tshwane and at the Combat Training Centre at Lohatla, in the Northern Cape.
Denel group CEO Riaz Saloojee said DISS was now ready to expand into other areas.
"The successful finalisation of this phase of the programme had positioned DISS well for subsequent stages and the company is now in a position to expand into other domains," he said.