The Democratic Alliance (DA) is gravely concerned about the crisis of police-issued firearms being lost or stolen in the Eastern Cape, exposing residents to even greater risk amid already escalating crime levels.
In response to a parliamentary question, MEC for Community Safety, Xolile Nqatha, has revealed that over the past four financial years, a staggering 410 SAPS firearms have been reported either missing or stolen in the province.
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Of these, 362 firearms were stolen, including 65 stolen directly from police stations and the remainder from SAPS officers. A further 48 firearms have been reported missing without a clear explanation.
While some 232 of these weapons have since been recovered, the reality is that at least 130 firearms remain unaccounted for and are potentially circulating in the criminal underworld.
The types of weapons lost are deeply concerning. Among those stolen were at least 164 Beretta pistols, 131 Vektor Z88 pistols, 26 Vektor R5 assault rifles, along with Musler shotguns, Walther pistols, FN rifles and Glock pistols.
These are not small-calibre weapons; these are firearms designed for combat and law enforcement, now in criminal hands through sheer negligence and poor controls.
What is most alarming, however, is that in the response, the SAPS confirmed that it does not have a system in place to track whether any of these stolen or missing firearms have been used in the commission of a crime.
The Provincial FLASH Office stated that there is no database available to draw such information from. This is a shocking indictment of the SAPS’s ability to safeguard the very weapons it is entrusted to carry, and an outright failure in governance.
The DA is demanding urgent and decisive action to address this crisis.
I will be tabling a motion in the Legislature to call for a full audit and investigation into every single missing or stolen firearm, with disciplinary action against SAPS members where negligence is found.
Furthermore, I will also call for the immediate establishment of a central, transparent firearm tracking database to link lost weapons to criminal incidents and for independent oversight of firearm storage and handling procedures within the SAPS.
Communities across the Eastern Cape deserve to know that their safety is not being undermined by police negligence. The fact that hundreds of firearms have disappeared from police custody without proper accountability or tracking systems is a betrayal of the public trust. The DA will continue to fight for a safer Eastern Cape and will not rest until meaningful reform is implemented.