Police commissioner reveals how illegal firearms enter the Western Cape

The South African Police Service (SAPS) is actively tracking the firearms of 36,000 deceased Western Cape residents. 

Western Cape Provincial Police Commissioner Lieutenant-General Thembisile Patekile revealed their efforts to curb illegal firearms during the provincial crime statistics briefing on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, Patekile was joined by the MEC for Police Oversight and Community Safety, Anroux Marais, where they unpacked the problems facing the curbing of illegal firearms in the province.

Marais said that a major driver of murder in the Western Cape remains the availability of illegal firearms and ammunition.

The MEC said firearms are still the most frequently used instrument of murder in the province, and in quarter one alone, there were 682 firearm-related murders in the Western Cape. 

“In quarter one, police detected 821 cases of illegal possession of firearms and ammunition, a 13.4% increase, showing more guns have been taken off the streets. In quarter two, this increased even further to 1,040 detections, a 28.6% increase, significantly higher than national figures.” 

She said that precincts like Mitchells Plain, Delft, Philippi, and Bishop Lavis feature prominently in these seizures, and that while these are important gains, “as long as illegal firearms continue to circulate in our communities, especially on the Cape Flats, the cycle of violence will continue”.

Patekile said that when it comes to the origin of illegal firearms, there are several factors, among them people losing them, and there are more than 36,000 people in the Western Cape who died having licensed firearms, and “nobody has applied for those firearms to be licenced, and they are (still) not back in our possession”.

“We are in the process of collecting those firearms, and encouraging people to bring (them), or apply for a licence for those firearms. When you inherit a firearm, you must apply for the licence. 

“I know that in my culture, when my father dies, if I’m the head of the house, it is mine, but in this case, you must apply for a firearm licence,” Patekile said.

The third factor affecting their fight against illegal firearms is that a number of them are coming from other countries. 

“I will not leave this issue of Namibia, I am going to say it again. More than 100 State arms have been found here in Cape Town alone. We are also mindful of the fact that there may have been firearms coming from Angola, and other countries that are not in our systems, and these firearms are new. 

“For example, the AK-47S, which in South Africa you are not getting a licence for an AK-47. (The AK-47s that) we are getting from the City of Cape Town is alarming, because they are not old firearms. Some of them are very new, which means that there is a route that we (will have to) be looking at.

“What we are trying to do is to look at the borders between ourselves and Namibia… I know that when we were speaking to the provincial government that we should be looking at possible technology of gun detection on the road,” Patekile said. 

He added that the fourth issue is that the SAPS is not immune to losing guns. 

“We have seen some people lose guns from the places where they stay, where they were robbed in the informal settlements and townships. That is also one of the problems. When a member is killed, then the firearm is gone,” Patekile said.

“Now, where are these firearms going to? I will not deny the fact that we lost firearms in Mitchell’s Plain SAPS... but we’ve taken steps against them. We have not seen any other firearms; we have learned from that.”

Patekile also noted that they have found firearms that have not been reported lost or stolen by the owners. 

“We are really appealing to the people; your responsibility is to report once you lose a firearm. Of course, we are going to be charging you for the loss of a firearm, but that is a procedure that must be followed, so that at the end of the day, the NPA and the State will decide whether to charge you or not.”

He added that what they have also seen in communities is that guns are now being carried by women, and the old gogos.

“They (the gangs) will shoot, and then it (the gun) gets to the gogos, so we're focusing on the areas where now the guns are.

“It might be seen to be very unethical when you see a person who's in a wheelchair that you've got to search him, but unfortunately, we've got to look at the bigger picture, because in that wheelchair, there are guns.

“We're preventing the murders of other people who would have been killed. Well, it's unethical to search a person who's disabled, but we've got to go beyond that, because we've seen.”

He added that the guns used in the shooting at the Wynberg Magistrate's Court were carried by a woman.

“That’s the unfortunate part. We've been saying women are the best people for peace, but now unfortunately they are being used, whether they are used by force or by any other means, but we're looking at that.”

Marais added that recently in Manenberg, officers were attempting to arrest a suspect found in possession of an illegal firearm, and they were attacked by members of the community in defence of that individual. 

Get your news on the go, click here to join the Cape Argus News WhatsApp channel.

Cape Argus