Cops lose thousands of guns
THE police have lost a staggering 2 356 firearms in the past three years, Police Minister Nathi Nhleko revealed in reply to a Parliamentary question by the DA’s spokeswoman on police, Dianne Kohler Barnard, yesterday.
This has raised fresh concerns of a hike in crime, especially as South Africa is rated among the countries with the worst crime statistics and in which murders continue to increase at an alarming rate.
Of the 2 356 firearms that the SAPS lost, 840 were lost in the 2012/13 financial year, 773 in 2013/14 and 743 in 2014/15. Out of the total figure, 81 were lost at the SAPS headquarters in Pretoria.
Most firearms were lost in KwaZulu-Natal at 165, followed by the Eastern Cape (150) and Gauteng (139). Less firearms were lost in the Northern Cape (14), followed by Free State with nine.
Concern
Gun Free South Africa spokeswoman Claire Taylor expressed grave concern at the “vicious cycle” in the number of firearms lost by the police, which “is the most significant source of illegal firearms”.
“The reality is that all firearms started out as legal before they ended up in the hands of criminals,” Taylor said.
“Fraud, corruption and poor implementation of the Firearms Control Act mean that people who are not ‘fit and proper’ are issued with firearm certificates, licences, permits or authorities.
“We need to close the taps throughwhich these legal guns leak into the illegal pool.”
The loss of firearms by police officers was among the concerns raised at the National Firearms Summit in Parliament in March.
“The rate is five times higher than the global average, of six murders per day and that’s too high,” the police secretariat’s Revena Fourie told the summit at the time.
The two-day summit came after the cabinet approved amendments to the Firearms Control Act in February.
Taylor said that she was optimistic that the proposed changes would help tighten laws around gun ownership, and ultimately reduce the number of illegal guns on the streets.
She said a gun-free society remained the viable way to reduction of crime.
“We still have this vicious cycle of guns being leaked into the illegal pool. We need to mop up illegal guns through the national amnesty and police operations, including stop-andsearches.”
Johan Burger, a senior researcher at the Institute of Security Studies, noted that the loss of firearms by the police had decreased during the past few years.
He said, however, that the proliferation of illegal guns in the streets remained a concern.
“The sad news is that just under a 1 000 firearms are still lost by the police while they are only able to retrieve about 10%. This means that many firearms end up in the hands of criminals,” said Burger.