In a shocking revelation, Police Minister Bheki Cele admitted that 61 cop guns were stolen every month for the last three years.
According to a parliamentary response to the Democratic Alliance (DA), Cele revealed that 1 725 SAPS firearms were stolen between April 2021 and July 2023, averaging 61 firearms per month.
According to Okkie Terblanche, the DA spokesman for Police, the figures for the 2023/24 financial year are on track to surpass 800, the highest in over a decade, reports IOL.
Terblanche says: “The fact that 1 725 firearms have been stolen means that there are potentially 1 725 more criminals in South Africa, or worse, have solidified gangs into small powerful armies, further exacerbating the fear most citizens already go to bed with at night.”
Simultaneously, parliamentary questions by Pieter Groenewald of the Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus) to Ministers of Defence and Military Veterans, Police as well as Justice and Correctional Services, revealed that numerous state firearms have been either lost or stolen.
Groenewald claims that approximately 2 000 stolen firearms were linked to the deaths of 89 children, with another 170 children wounded.
The FF Plus said their queries to these departments remain unanswered due to ongoing class action litigation against the police by victims’ families.
The statistics are alarming: between 2019 and 2023, 42 firearms, including 33 R4 and R1 assault rifles, were stolen from the SA National Defence Force (SANDF), along with over 3 000 rounds of ammunition.
In the Department of Justice and Correctional Services, 18 handguns and 295 rounds of ammunition were either stolen or lost in 19 incidents.