Cape Town – Noting that the SAPS are reportedly experiencing an ammunition shortage, which impacts on officers' ability to complete their firearm proficiency tests, Community Safety MEC Albert Fritz has written to acting provincial police commissioner General Sindile Mfazi seeking clarity on the shortages.
National police spokesperson Vishnu Naidoo earlier confirmed that the SAPS was experiencing a shortage of ammunition due to a manufacturer’s inability to supply the police service.
Contingency measures had been put in place to ensure that service delivery was not compromised until the SAPS received their required ammunition, he said.
In a parliamentary question asked by MPL Mireille Wenger to then Community Safety MEC Dan Plato in August last year, it was revealed 4 556 officers were not able to complete their firearm proficiency tests in the 2017/18 financial year and were consequently instructed to hand in their firearms, Fritz said on Wednesday.
Fritz has asked the following questions:
1. Whether there is in fact an ammunition shortage within the Western Cape SAPS?
2. What the causes are for this ammunition shortage?
3. Whether any measures are in place to address the causes of these shortages? and
4. What steps are being taken in the interim to ensure that officers are not removed from operations due to not being able to complete firearms proficiency testing?”
“Despite the Defence and Military Veterans Minister, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula’s comment that the SANDF deployment had been a success, it should be noted that these relative successes are undermined by resource and training constraints within the SAPS," Fritz added.
"This was previously demonstrated by the state of detectives report and has again been highlighted by the reported ammunitions shortage.”
Senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies Johan Burger told the Cape Argus: “Denel is only part of the ammunition shortage problem.
"A lot of ammunition gets stolen and sold to gangs, and several police officers have already been arrested in parts of the country.
“If the SAPS cannot issue permits to police officers that warrant the issuing of a service pistol, then they cannot carry out their operational duties.
“This is a serious threat to the SAPS’s ability to deliver an effective service. You cannot send a police officer not certified to carry a weapon to approach gangsters, hijackers or cash-in-transit robbers, or even allow such officers to perform duties with an officer entitled to carry a firearm."