The following is an official statement by Pieter Groenewald of the Vryheidsfront Plus, originally published in Afrikaans on the party website:

While there is great pressure on legal, private firearms ownership, the state itself is a major source of firearms supply to criminals with little seriousness to stop it.

This is evident from questions that the leader of the FF Plus, dr. Pieter Groenewald, directed to the ministers of defense and military veterans, the police as well as justice and correctional services, about, among other things, state firearms that have been lost or stolen. (Questions and answers attached).

What stands out from the answers are the light punishments imposed on members of the departments due to the loss or theft of firearms and/or ammunition.

In some cases, guilty members were punished with a single month's salary or only given a written warning, which clearly will not act as a deterrent.

It also remains that there is a lot of dragging of feet with the investigation and prosecution of members which reinforces the impression that there is no real seriousness in actually stopping firearms theft.

In addition, the Department of Defense's precautions are largely focused on repairing broken fences and heightened fence security.

This will do little to prevent the theft or loss of firearms and ammunition from within the department itself.

This situation connects with the events surrounding the former police colonel Christiaan Prinsloo who was found guilty of having stolen firearms in police possession and sold them to gangs.

According to media reports, Prinsloo served barely three years and ten months of an eighteen-year sentence.

Questions from the FF Plus to the Minister of Police about crimes committed so far with the stolen weapons have not been answered as the information forms part of a class action by next of kin of victims against the police.

The case has also been dragging on since early last year. What is known from media reports is that by 2016, some of the 2,000 stolen firearms were already linked to the death of 89 children while 170 children were wounded with them.

The FF Plus will ask that these answers be provided as soon as the class action is concluded.

From the army, 42 firearms were stolen from the financial year 2019 to the end of last year. Worryingly, 33 of these are R4 and R1 assault rifles. More than 3,000 rounds of ammunition for the assault rifles were also stolen.

The other weapons are mainly handguns. Here too, almost 3,000 rounds of ammunition were stolen.

Only five army members were successfully prosecuted. The rest of the cases are still unresolved or no prosecution has been instituted.

As far as justice and correctional services are concerned, since the financial year 2019 until the end of last year there were 19 incidents in which 18 handguns and 295 rounds of ammunition were stolen or lost.

Two members were fired. The others were warned or forfeited a month's salary at most. Preventive steps include monthly inspections and the daily surrender of firearms.

This information makes it clear that the problem is big and the action, prosecution and prevention are few. Meanwhile, there is a stream of dangerous firearms from the state that end up in the hands of criminals.

The situation can soon be reversed if the state acts with the same zeal as its efforts to criminalize legal, private firearms ownership.