Government tackles illegal firearms prevalence - Minister
Acting Minister of Defence, Justice and Security, Kabo Morwaeng says there are comprehensive response plans in place to mitigate the situation for increasing illegal firearms.
According to Morwaeng, illegal firearms are indeed a concern to security organs as they are increasingly used in criminal activities such as armed robberies and poaching.
He said the comprehensive plans include visible patrols, special operations, deployment of officers at borders, stop, questions and search and armed escorts. These strategies are implemented to also tackle emerging crimes as well as public education and community policing, he said.
“The Botswana Police Service continues to have presence on the streets and crime hotspots as a further strategy to improve visibility around the country. Law enforcement agencies in particular the police and the Botswana Defence Force ( BDF) carry out joint patrols or operations. Facial recognition is one of the key components of the safer city or security cameras projects which is in Gaborone, Francistown and other places. The intention is to roll out the safer city project to all major towns in the country,” said Morwaeng, who revealed that the project will continue to be improved to enhance detection of criminals.
The Minister told Parliament that he is aware that crime and violent criminal activities appear to be on the rise in the country. He explained that the national crime statistics demonstrates that indeed an increase was realised in violent crimes such as murder, rape, defilement, threat to kill and robbery.
“The total number of cases for these crimes in 2020 was 5, 823. In 2021, the cases increased to 6, 599, making a difference of 776 or 13 per cent increase. The annual statistics for the year 2022 have not yet been compiled or concluded as you are aware that we are only two months from January 2022. The most prominent forms of violent crimes for these years were rape, defilement and robbery,” stated the Minister.
Morwaeng was responding to a question from MP for Gaborone North, Mpho Balopi who asked the Minister of Defence, Justice and Security: Whether he is aware that crime and violent criminal activities appear to be on the rise; and to further state: what the national crime statistics demonstrate regarding violent crimes in each of the following years: 2020, 2021 and 2022; what forms of violent crimes are most prominent; whether illegal firearms are a concern to security organs in view of the fact that gun related crimes seem to be on the rise, and what plans are in place to arrest the situation; and what security organs are doing to improve visibility and their presence around the country and within Gaborone, as a measure to avert crime occurrence.