Chaos at police firearms registry

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Published Jul 22, 2015

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Johannesburg - Power surges, database problems, thousands of applications and poor tracking of homeland guns - these are some of the problems facing the police who run the Central Firearms Registry.

The problems are noted in a report by the portfolio committee on police following MPs’ oversight visits late last year.

The report was tabled in Parliament last week.

The committee found a “major problem” with insufficient staff, as the SAPS uses the same officers to deal with firearms, liquor and second-hand goods matters, and sometimes gives them other work too.

The registry had a power surge “which damaged all the computers” and resulted in technological challenges, the report said. The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research is helping the police to sort this out.

In North West and the Northern Cape, the firearms officers didn’t have enough cars to carry out inspections.

The Gauteng South officers pointed out that the registry system takes multiple applications for the same firearm.

In Gauteng North, the area the office is in is unsafe and the officers don’t have enough vehicles. In Gauteng North, there were reports that some people own more than 120 firearms.

“Others owned 10 semi-automatic weapons and their view was there should be limitations placed on the ownership of such weapons,” the report added.

“There are cases where people legitimately disposed of firearms in 1991, but the system continues to show that they still own them. The SAPS are also unable to locate people who bought firearms,” the report stated.

The Eastern Cape receives more than 10 000 firearm applications every month, which caused major problems.

“There are many firearms that are not registered on the system. Dealers have firearms that are not registered on the system. The SAPS don’t have a track record of these firearms,” the report said of the Eastern Cape region.

Tracking of the weapons from the former homelands was still a problem.

“The committee noted that the firearms of the former Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei (TBVC) are also not on the database which was a concern.

“The state of affairs is unacceptable as the country requires a corruption-free database. There is an immediate need to set timelines for the integration of the databases and upgrading of technology,” according to the report.

The SAPS told the committee that “the former TBVC states’ defence force and police force firearms have been accounted for and had been recorded”

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The committee heard that the contract which was supposed to dot peen firearms (a system of marking firearms with metal pin marks) “did not deliver”.

The Firearms Appeal Board (FAB) told the committee that many of the SAPS refusals of firearm licences ended up as appeals to the board, but should not have ended up in court.

“According to the FAB, there appears to be a lack of knowledge of the rules governing the refusal of licences,” the report said. When police couldn’t back up their refusal with paperwork, the FAB “usually took a decision in favour of the applicant”.

The committee also heard that up to 39 000 police officers don’t have firearms.

The SAPS told the committee this was permitted in terms of the law.

The SAPS also told the committee that there were no backlogs in the system.

The committee asked the SAPS for a revised action plan, recommended that all vacancies at the registry be filled as soon as possible, and that “a clean and comprehensive database of all firearms is required, even if it means a legislative review”.

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