Cape Town – AfriForum on Thursday rejected attempts by the South African Police Minister to halt attempts to reveal figures of stolen state firearms.
Ian Cameron the organisation’s head of community safety said the organisation was going ahead with two court applications to force the minister “to publish the complete figures of stolen firearms that were in the possession of the state between 2009 and 2014”.
He said the organisation would proceed with the applications despite a letter from Minister of Police Nkosinathi Nhleko arguing that publication of the figures would be a “risk for national safety”.
AfriForum quoted from the letter from Nhleko who had said “if access to the requested information is granted, this information could be misused by any person and this may compromise the current firearm related criminal investigations”.
According to AfriForum, Nhleko, in his letter, had also argued that publishing the figures would mean that “every person would know the number of firearms in possession of the Service and also where such firearm are located if this information is made available to the public”.
Nhleko cited this as being a “security risk to the State and stability of society”.
Cameron though disagreed, saying that it was in the nation’s interest for the information to be released, arguing that “the state discourages applications by the public to obtain weapons for the personal protection of life and property, while the state loses a great number of weapons and cannot safeguard the public”.
“It is precisely the Minister’s attempt to try and hide these figures that amounts to a national safety risk – not the publication thereof by AfriForum,” said Cameron.
He went on to state that according to provisional figures, “nearly 7,000 firearms were reported as stolen or missing by the police itself”.
He said “this information needs to be published so that the necessary steps can be taken against the guilty officials”.
African News Agency
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