Dear Portfolio Committee on Police,

I handed in 3 firearms at the beginning of the year under the amnesty in order to re-license them under my name. The number of working days since they were handed in is currently sitting on 189 days and the documentation has not even left the station where I handed in the firearms.

When I asked why this is the case, the DFO told me it is because of the backlog in doing ballistics and that they can only send 50 firearms per day.

Over and above this, the time it takes to process firearm license applications takes far more than 120 days based on the comments posted by people on social media. I recently had to wait over 160 working days to have a simple competency approved by SAPS!

This is totally unacceptable and in the year 2021, I cannot understand how we are still using a paper based system to do this. The images circulating earlier in the year showing the mountains of paperwork sitting in the CFR shows that it is simply not able to handle this task and therefore a better solution needs to be introduced urgently.

The solution is "license the person, register the firearm". If a person wants to own firearms, they need to complete the prescribed training as is done today, then take the certificates to their DFO and right there the DFO adds the information to a central online system showing that the person is now licensed. No physical card should be required since all the information is now online.

Then, the person should be able to go to a firearm store, purchase the firearm(s) that they are licensed for and the sales person should simply log onto the online system and insert the serial number of the firearm(s) purchased under the persons name. If the person's name does not show that the prescribed qualifications have been completed, the sale must then be stopped. Once the firearm serial number has been added, the person should then pay and walk out with the property they paid for.

This will eliminate unnecessary paperwork, reduce corruption coming from SAPS and enable South Africans to safeguard themselves from violent criminals, enjoy their hobbies such as sport shooting or hunting.

This same process mentioned above has been promoted by numerous individuals and firearms organizations in South Africa and needs to be introduced urgently.

Lastly, the biggest problem that seems to consistently come up is that SAPS makes up their own rules as they go along, ignoring court orders and deliberately frustrating the licensing process. This is another reason why SAPS is NOT fit to run the CFR and it should be removed from them and the task be given to a private organization who will guarantee consistent, quality, service delivery.

Kind regards,
Karl