Police negligence arms criminals with 7‚829
guns‚ says AfriForum
07 September 2017 – 14:32
Police
Minister Fikile Mbalula
Supplied
Supplied
Data released by the police
reveal that negligence has resulted in police losing about 7‚829 firearms
between 2009 and 2014‚ with some of these weapons used in violent and serious
crimes.
Police minister Fikile
Mbalula released this information to Afrikaner interest group AfriForum as
ordered by the Pretoria high court.
In May the court ordered the
minister to hand over to AfriForum‚ within 60 days‚ statistics on firearms lost
by‚ or stolen from the police since 2009.
Ian Cameron‚ AfriForum head
of community safety‚ on Thursday told journalists in Pretoria that although
they had not received all the information they requested‚ they were disturbed
by the figures.
With a whopping 835 guns
stolen‚ KwaZulu-Natal tops the list of stolen guns‚ followed by Gauteng with
741. Other provinces with a high number of guns stolen from the police are the
Eastern Cape at 635 and Mpumalanga at 289.
A total of 396 guns were stolen at police
headquarters alone.
KwaZulu-Natal also tops the
list of guns reported missing from the police at 1‚073‚ followed by Mpumalanga
at 592 and Eastern Cape at 360 missing guns.
Eastern Cape leads the pack
for most unaccounted for guns at 732‚ followed by Gauteng at 148 – with 154
guns unaccounted for at police headquarters.
“These figures do not include
firearms that the SA Police Service should have kept in safekeeping‚ handed in
in terms of gun amnesty for destruction and those seized as evidence‚ but only
reflect those in the police’s asset register‚” said Cameron.
AfriForum also requested
these figures‚ but they were not provided‚” he said.
He said their quest for this
information was triggered by the 2014 police raid on the house of a Ukrainian
couple in Norwood‚ Johannesburg‚ in which 112 assault rifles‚ handguns‚
commercial explosives and detonators were seized. The weapons included some
that had been reported as destroyed by the police.
Cameron said out of over 300
firearms seized during the raid‚ more than half were state registered firearms.
It’s a case of too little, too late in KZN’s killing fields
He said these were firearms handed in during the
amnesty period‚ saying they wanted to establish how the weapons ended up with
the couple.
“Government did say‚ they did
not even know that some of these weapons had been stolen or lost‚” Cameron
said.
He said the information could
answer the question as to where cash-in-transit gangs get the supply of
firepower they seem to have.
“Mbalula wrote to us stating
that data of missing firearms from the central firearm register could not be
released to us as some of those firearms have been used in the commission of
violent and serious crimes‚” he said.
AfriForum is going to request
police watchdog Independent Police Investigative Directorate to probe police’s
negligence in handling firearms‚ which the organisation’s risk and support
manager‚ Hein Gonzales‚ said was a big cause if violent crime in the country.
The organisation said it
would be interested to learn the circumstances under which these guns went
missing or were stolen‚ saying in Germiston alone more than 150 missing
firearms were investigated in one docket.
https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2017-09-07-police-negligence-arms-criminals-with-7829-guns-says-afriforum/
