Government procurement agency Armscor says it more than doubled its acquisitions of arms to R5,2bn in the past financial year due in part to the R43bn arms deal.

Arms acquisition for SA law enforcement agencies is Armscor's core function, and the money is for capital expenditure handled by the agency for the defence department.

Spokeswoman Minah Sindane said that the agency was operating two budgets: one for its needs and the other to cater for armaments acquisitions.

In terms of its own needs, Armscor's revenue rose to R489,9m in the year to March from R469,8m previously.

The net surplus increased to R2,5m from R2,3m previously. This was due mainly to an increase in its allocation from government, a decrease in marketing costs and lower profit from subsidiaries.

The departing chairman of Armscor, Ron Haywood, handed the company's financial report to Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota in Pretoria yesterday.

Armscor said in the report that the amount was 97,35% of funds provided for procurement.

A breakdown of acquisition activities showed the special defence account at R4,3bn, the general defence at R843,3m and acquisition for the SA Police Service was R54,1m.

Acquisitions for other lawenforcement agencies including Correctional Services and the Scorpions amounted to a mere R61m.

The report showed that foreign suppliers had in the past financial year to April given SA companies R1,608bn worth of contracts.

The work associated with the strategic defence packages meant that they had satisfied about 9,1% of their defence industrial participation, said the CEO of Armscor, Sipho Thomo.

Armscor is also responsible for the sale of redundant, obsolete or surplus SA National Defence Force equipment.

Although it tends to be reluctant to say which countries it sold weapons to, its report said that R60,38m of stock was sold with the approval of the National Conventional Arms Control Committee.

Haywood praised Armscor's leadership in terms of corporate governance when he handed over of the report.

Armscor, he said, had extended the requirement to declare any potential conflict of interest to not only the directors but also to other employees.

With acknowledgment to Bonile Ngqiyaza, Robyn Chalmers and Business Day.