He was addressing delegates at the Institute for Security Studies' maritime security seminar held in Pretoria.
Heitman says that Somali pirates are not getting paid the ransoms they demand or have to wait for payment in a country where there is no effective government.
He warns that the Mozambique Channel is not densely populated, is seriously under-policed and lots of ships move through it. If pirates started operating in the channel they would not have the time to wait for a ransom to be paid and this would probably prompt them to loot the ships instead.
He suggested that local government, including South Africa, Madagascar and Mozambique should pre-empt the prospect of piracy in the channel by policing it and by improving the economic situation of local residents.
He says the legal framework for arresting and charging pirates caught operating off the African coast needs to urgently be addressed as problems could result from hot-pursuit operations that involve crossing territorial waters.
South Africa is the only country with a navy that could be used to counter piracy. Madagascar has more than 4 000 kilometres of coastline and yet has only one patrol craft and one landing craft.
Meanwhile, Ben Coetzee, senior researcher for the arms management programme at the Institute for Security Studies says that the impact of piracy on Africa is "deadly" and warns that piracy on the West and East coasts will have dire consequences for the continent.
Read more on The Institute for Security Studies.
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