News South African news
Firearms lost by the police are fuelling the illegal arms trade in South Africa, the Democratic Alliance says, and the SAPS are doing little to prevent the trend.
“The 4000 new pistols ordered by the South African Police Service (SAPS) are not to boost SAPS firepower, but mostly to replace lost and stolen SAPS firearms, while the management of firearms within the Police Service deteriorates rapidly.
“As revealed on the ARMSCOR website, the ordering of some 4000 new Beretta pistols means that another R16 million (equivalent to R4000 per pistol) is being spent by the SAPS on procuring weapons.
“However, we understand this order is almost entirely as a consequence of the fact that nearly 3000 SAPS firearms were lost or stolen over a period of just six months last year.
“Even more concerning is that these firearms inevitably fall into the wrong hands and are used in criminal activities. As SAPS firearms are lost and stolen and then replaced at great cost, with seemingly no action from SAPS management to prevent this, the SAPS are unwittingly fuelling the illegal arms trade,” says DA MP Diane Kohler Barnard.
“Last October, it was revealed that 2 944 firearms had been lost or stolen from the SAPS - approximately three firearms lost or stolen from each station in the country. These are the figures to September; implying that we will see record police firearm losses for 2009/10, once the final tally is in.”
Barnard says she is writing to the national commissioner to call for better firearms management systems.
