Denel has said their Swartklip ammunition and explosives factory must be moved to avert possible disasters - but they don't know where it will move, or when.

They have added that they might not move the plant at all, but rather move the squatters who have built homes within the safety zone around the factory which is located between Mitchell's Plain and Khayelitsha.

This comes after Denel's CEO Victor Moche said in parliament this week that the Swartklip plant's location was "untenable" as it posed a danger to the nearby residents.

When the Cape Times asked Moche where the Swartklip plant would move to and when, he replied: "I don't know, that's the honest answer. We're in the phase of understanding the potential risks and beginning to discuss them with the government and communities."

"Until a while ago the plant was relatively safe. Now I have seen people within the perimeter of the plant gathering firewood, which is highly dangerous."

"Some resolution must be found. It may be moving the plant or moving the encroachment of informal settlement."

Swartklip is built on 517ha of state land.

Moche said Denel was in discussions with the authorities and local residents on the matter. "Our primary concern is that no lives should be lost because of people who, in ignorance, are breaking safety rings and fences around an explosives plant to exploit the land which they see as just lying there," Moche said.

Asked if Swartklip needed to find a site near Cape Town, he replied that ideally the explosives plant should be "in isolation". When the plant was built in 1948 the site was isolated. In the 1970s the apartheid government built Mitchell's Plain and Khayelitsha near Swartklip.

With acknowledgements to Melanie Gosling and the Cape Times.