Gun crisis deepens
DELAY: APPLICATIONS FOR RENEWAL NOT PROCESSED DUE TO SYSTEM ISSUE
Minister of Police Bheki Cele has admitted the country’s firearms registry cannot control the flow of licence renewal applications – leading to a huge backlog.
‘This leads to great concern over Saps capacity to manage the amnesty period.’
An estimated one million legal firearm renewal applications have been delayed due to the police’s failure to repair its IT systems. Also, the unlawful 2016 national directive which prohibits the renewal of expired licences has not been retracted.
“The Central Firearms Registry (CFR) cannot currently control the normal flow of renewal applications, and Minister of Police Bheki Cele recently acknowledged it,” said Southern African Agri Initiative (Saai) chairperson Dr Theo de Jager.
“This leads to great concern over the SA Police Service’s [Saps’] capacity to sensibly manage the amnesty period over the next six months.”
De Jager noted Saps had a “very poor track record” regarding firearm control and alleged Saps had lost thousands of its own firearms over the past few years.
“Cele announced in August 2019 that more than 500 firearms had already been lost by police officers,” said De Jager.
“The requirement that firearms for which renewal applications are submitted must be handed in at police stations leaves farmers worried that, based simply on statistics, police stations are the most unsafe place for this purpose.”
However, there was no need for gun owners with expired licences to hand in their firearms during the amnesty period since “Saps had been interdicted from confiscating them”, explained Gun Owners South Africa vice-chairman Gideon Joubert.
“How will police logistically deal with [all these] firearms arriving at police stations, put them in safe-keeping, knowing full well of leaks that happen within the police itself?
“And how will the paperwork be dealt with?” Joubert asked.
“There was a court order by the North Gauteng High Court on the old white card licences that you cannot be criminalised for having an expired licence and the property cannot be confiscated or the person cannot be prosecuted.
“There is no need to hand [the firearm] in yet,” said Joubert.
The six-month firearm amnesty period started yesterday and those who possess an illegal or unlicensed firearm have until the end of May 2020 to hand them into the police without facing prosecution, Bheki announced last week, promising no mercy would be shown to those who failed to come forward.
The portfolio committee on police has urged the ministry and Saps to consider a concession for people who were not able to renew their firearm licences and allow them to utilise this period of amnesty to apply for the requisite licence, the committee said.
Gun Free South Africa welcomed the amnesty, believing it effective in recovering unwanted, unauthorised and illegal guns.
According to the organisation, more than 120 000 firearms and 1.8 million rounds of ammunition were recovered in the country’s past three amnesties.
More than a third of the firearms and ammunition recovered in 2005 and 2010 were illegally held.
How will the paperwork be dealt with?