Wyndham Hartley
19 December 2005
Cape Town — Firearm owners' associations and opposition parties have welcomed the extension granted for relicensing legal firearms, but have warned that the three months merely delays the crisis created by the new Firearms Control Act.
Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula announced last Thursday that the December 31 deadline for renewals for gun owners whose birthdays fall between January and March would be extended to March next year.
Crucially, he also announced that all licences would be valid until June 30 2009. This means there will be no prospect of legal action against gun owners who do not reapply until that date.
There were mounting fears, based on threats by some police officers, that people who did not meet the December 31 deadline would face prosecution in the new year.
This year about 500000 gun owners were required to reapply for their gun licences. Only about 60000 have done so -- and more than 400000 must apply and be processed between January and March next year.
But another batch of about 500000, whose birthdays fall between April and June, will have to start their relicensing process, creating a bottleneck.
Martin Hood, spokesman for the United Firearms Forum, welcomed the extension and the clarification on prosecutions. He said the forum believed that Nqakula had been badly advised by the South African Police Service (SAPS) about the extent of the problems.
With only about 10% of renewal applications handed in, Nqakula had to take a hard look at the process, Hood said.
Democratic Alliance (DA) safety and security spokesman Roy Jankielsohn said the extension was a "a welcome acknowledgement by government that the renewal process is in a crisis".
"Although this will relieve some of the current bottlenecks, it will not solve many of the problems."
These included the costs of the renewal process, the lack of capacity in the SAPS and the inevitable delay in the next round of renewals.
Jankielsohn said the DA believed that an audit of firearm licences, firearms and owners would have been a cheaper option.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2005 Business Day. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
