15 000 guns 'floating around'

2003-09-17 15:49

Cape Town - There were 14 789 firearms floating around in various state departments in South Africa, MPs heard on Wednesday.

"The firearms were found in 68 provincial institutions, 22 national institutions and 31 museums," police director Jaco Bothma told members of the portfolio committee on safety and security.

A police delegation briefed the committee on its firearms strategy, which included an audit of firearms in possession of state departments, excluding state security agencies.

Bothma said the objectives of the audit were to get detailed information from all state departments regarding the status of firearms in their possession, update the records of the departments with the Firearms Register System, and help state departments to hand in and destroy redundant and obsolete firearms.

"Phase two will see the physical inspection of all firearms, assisting in the destruction of obsolete firearms and accrediting state departments," he said.

44 010 firearms confiscated

There were 3 252 registered security businesses, of which 1 643 businesses were had firearms, totalling 58 981, he said.

"Between 2000 and August 2003, 84 977 state-owned firearms were destroyed. Another 44 010 firearms were confiscated, with the total number destroyed for this period 128,987," he said.

Speaking on behalf of Operation Sethunya, the police's plan to eradicate the proliferation of firearms, assistant police commissioner Gary Kruser said they had achieved lots of successes.

"The impact of Operation Sethunya on crime and violence has seen reported murder cases decrease by 8.3%, attempted murder decreased by 12.6%. However, robbery aggravated increased by 23.4%," he said.

Kruser said about 15 000 compliance inspections were conducted countrywide and about 117 600 firearms were inspected by the police.

In instances where irregularities had been detected, the police had acted to deal with these aspects.

About 300 people had been arrested in this drive and 450 investigations were still pending.

'Don't need guns for grants'

However, committee chairman Mluleki George said the report did not have enough detailed information, such as how many firearms were in, for example, social development or home affairs and what calibres the weapons were.

"You don't need firearms to give social grants or for the issuing of identity documents," he said.

Earlier, at the start of the briefing, George also expressed unhappiness that national police commissioner Jackie Selebi could not attend.

"Once the police management start not taking parliament seriously, then they are inviting big trouble... It is in their own interests and the interests of communities to take parliament seriously. They (police) are the strongest link between communities and parliament, which makes laws," he said.

However, deputy national police commissioner André Pruis apologised on Selebi's behalf, saying the commissioner was at a southern African regional police chiefs co-operation organisation meeting.

- SAPA