Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia used a Parliamentary question to correct an uMkhonto we Sizwe Party (MKP) parliamentarian on the number of firearms lost by the SA Police Service (SAPS).

The University of the Witwatersrand law professor replaced suspended Senzo Mchunu on 1 August in the wake of the establishment of the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry, officially the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Criminality, Political Interference and Corruption in the Criminal Justice System.

Ahead of supplying Wesley Douglas with the information he requested, Cachalia told the MKP Member of Parliament (MP) the SAPS disputes his assertion that 7 500 state-issued firearms are “now in the hands of criminal syndicates”. The acting minister’s response in this regard reads: “There is currently no record of the 7 500 state issued (SAPS) firearms in question. Available data records from 2019/2020 until current, indicate a total of 4 124 SAPS-owned firearms reported as lost/stolen”.

Cachalia further informed his questioner a working group, set up by SAPS National Commissioner, General Fannie Masemola, is working on a thorough verification process of all SAPS-owned firearms lost/stolen from 2019/2020 on. The report will be ready for submission [presumably to Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Police] by 15 January.

The working group is using the SAPS Working Group on Official Losses terms of reference, approved on 31 August this year to verify lost and/or stolen police firearms. Number one on a list of six requirements is “confirmation and management of the physical loss of the SAPS-owned firearm” followed by departmental and criminal investigations, reporting firearm recovery or confirmation of loss, including determination and liability.

The Cachalia also has it since 2020, “there are no active members that are linked to corruption of and convicted in court for facilitating and/or participating in the supply of SAPS owned firearms to organised criminal networks”.