MINISTER MAKES FACTS UP ABOUT FIREARMS
The Minister of Police, Mr. Nathi Mthetwa, can't say how many crimes were committed by owners of legal firearms or by people who had stolen or illegal firearms. This appears from an official answer addressed to Mr. Pieter Groenewald (MP) of the Freedom Front Plus in Parliament. Groenewald had asked the question after Mtehtwa had in October of 2009 said that the excessive crime levels in South Africa was partly due to the large numbers of firearms of civilians, especially legal firearm owners. President Jacob Zuma also said in the same month in Tzaneen in Limpopo that too many firearms were still in the hands of civilians.
"I said at the time that there is no proof for the statements of the President and the Minister and that I would be submitting questions about this in Parliament. My statement has now been proven to be correct and it is clear that the Minister is advising the President wrongly. It also proves that the minister is pursuing a vendetta against legal firearm owners and falsely accuses them as if they are the big reason for the excessive crime in South Africa . The minister's acknowledgement that he does not know, proves that his disapproving statement on legal firearm owners is drawn from his own imagination and he owes legal firearm owners an apology," Mr. Pieter Groenewald (MP), chief spokesperson on Police for the Freedom Front Plus says.
"The fact that in the Police in less than three years 7 374 firearms (07/08 - 4430 and Sept 09 - 2944) had been lost or were stolen is rather the big reason for excessive crime in South Africa . Criminals do not use legal firearms for robberies. The Minister should rather focus on the control and management of his department's firearms and not use legal firearm owners as a smoke screen," Groenewald said.
PIETER GROENEWALD (MP)
Answer by Minister - NATIONAL ASSEMBLY - FOR WRITTEN REPLY - QUESTION NO 1987 - DATE OF PUBLICATION IN INTERNAL QUESTION PAPER: 2 NOVEMBER 2009 - (INTERNAL QUESTION PAPER NO 26 - 2009) - Date reply submitted : 15 December 2009 - Mr P J Groenewald (FF Plus) to ask the Minister of Police:
(1) How many crimes were committed (a) in (i) 2007 and (ii) 2008 and (b) during the period 1 January 2009 up to the latest specified date for which information is available (aa) by owners of licensed firearms, (bb) with stolen licensed firearms and (cc) with illegal firearms;
(2) whether he will make a statement on the matter?
NW2614E
REPLY:
The detailed information requested can only be obtained by submitting an ad hoc request to the Information and Systems Management component of the South African Police Service to obtain the Crime Administration System (CAS) numbers of the individual crimes under discussion. This entails a lengthy process, as priority is always given to information requests from operational divisions which need information to plan their day-to-day activities. Once the above information is received from the Information Systems Management component, correspondence will have to be directed to all police stations involved country-wide in an effort to determine the status of each such case, thereby placing and extra burden on limited human and financial resources. Members will in such a case have to be withdrawn from other duties to be specially allocated to peruse dockets and registers.
Even if returns are received from the provinces after such an exercise, the information can not be verified without physical inspection at all the affected stations.
Reply to question 1987 approved by Minister
Statement issued by Pieter Groenewald, MP, Freedom Front Plus spokesperson on the police, February 1 2010
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