SAPS: R400
million firearms control system in shambles
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The police are under pressure to
sort out problems with a R400 million firearms control system. Groundup
reports.
In its successful bid for the
contract in 2003, Waymark proposed an IT system which would enable the police
to track firearms and identify the ownership, identity and history of a firearm
“anywhere anytime”. In addition to this “technical solution”, Waymark proposed
skills development to ensure that police personnel are trained to use the
system. Waymark’s tender estimated the system would cost R42 million.
The Firearms Control Act of 2000
requires that the National Police Commissioner establish a “Central Firearms
Register”. The deliverables expected from Waymark –a database and document
processing system to manage the firearms register– are noted in the contract
signed with the police and correspond closely to the legislated requirements
for the Central Firearms Register.
According to the Auditor-General’s
performance audit report for 2012/13, the contract, signed in September 2004,
set the price for the system at around R93 million. This is more than double
the estimate in the tender. The contract also set the deadline for the system
handover at 5 July 2006. But between March 2005 and February 2007, addenda to
the contract show that the deadline was pushed back multiple times. The cost of
the system also escalated to about R412 million, of which R343 million has been
paid according to the Auditor-General.
In 2012, the police suspended
dealings with Waymark and launched an internal investigation into the contract.
Yet it remains unclear whether this investigation was ever completed. The
reasons for the ballooning costs and delays associated with the contract also
remain a mystery. Last month, more than a year after Cape Town-based NGO
Ndifuna Ukwazi lodged a Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA)
application, the police handed over the contract documents for the development
of the firearms control system. But details of the additional costs have been
blanked out and some pages have been removed.
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