State arms manufacturer Denel has warned that its Swartklip ammunition and explosives plant on the Cape Flats must be moved "to avert possible disasters".

At least a million people live in the areas around the Swartklip plant, while between 1 200 and 1 400 people are employed there, many on a seasonal basis.

Denel Chief Executive Officer Victor Moche told parliament's defence committee yesterday that the plant's location was "untenable" as it posed a danger to the nearby communities of Khayelitsha, Mitchell's Plain and Philippi.

There have been several incidents involving Swartklip in recent years, such as the one last August when hundreds of pupils at Beacon Hill and Oval North high schools had to be sent home because of a teargas leak.

The Swartklip facility was built in 1948 and acquired by the apartheid government in 1971 when the area was deserted.

In the late 1970s the regime began developing the Mitchell's Plain and Khayelitsha residential areas close to the factory.

Moche said the Swartklip plant had "lost its protection against encroachment of urban settlements to an extent that it has become untenable to maintain the plant".

Denel was discussing with the public enterprises department "measures to avert possible disasters in these areas where our plants are no longer viable", he said.

Denel also did not have an appropriate waste management system and was in discussions with the environmental affairs department on this.

"The intention is to ensure that, where urban encroachment has made the continued existence of those facilities untenable, government at national, provincial and local levels must address the issue with us, so that we can continue to have our operations but in locations that are safe for communities," Moche told the portfolio committee on defence.

In an interview afterwards, Moche said that although there was no scientific evidence that surrounding communities had suffered because of the plant, people in informal settlements and others using the bushy property to collect wood could be at risk.

"Swartklip is an explosives factory and as such the law requires a safety ring with inner, middle and outer boundaries."

"Those have been encroached on by largely squatter-type settlements," Moche said.

"Either the plant goes or the communities retreat."

Denel was studying the possible dangers to the surrounding communities and "crafting possible alternatives on the location" as well as doing an environmental impact study on the implications of moving off the land.

Asked whether the plant could be closed, Moche said: "That may be one of the recommendations that comes out."

Gun Free South Africa welcomed as "a major breakthrough" Denel's admission that the plant was "untenable" and that there was a problem with waste disposal throughout the company's operations.

The group called on the defence committee to consider that plants like Swartklip brought with them considerable negatives, including pollution and worker injuries.

"Surely more productive use can be made of taxpayers' money," the group said.

"If a new plant is to be built, let it manufacture other products that promote life, rather than death."

With acknowledgements to Jeremy Michaels, Nawaal Dreyer and the Cape Times.