By Kouthar Sambo
Gun Free South Africa is advocating for outsourcing the management of the police’s Central Firearms Registry (CFR) since it has been declared “dysfunctional.”
“The situation became much worse after the Firearms Control Act 60 of 2000 was passed because they put more administrative functions in place of the Central Firearms Registry,” said Gun Free South Africa researcher, Claire Taylor, on Voice of the Cape’s (VOC) breakfast show on Wednesday morning.
Even though they are administrative functions, explained Taylor, they play a crucial role in fighting crime in South Africa. And while the CFR employs many of those functions, there has been underperformance, as well as fewer cases of corruption involving the CFR.
“Gun Free South Africa, together with the African Policing Oversight Forum, undertook a search project to explore the feasibility of outsourcing CFR. This way, the CFR is taken away from the police to improve the functionality.”
She further cited the case of former police officer, Christian Prinsloo, who was found stealing guns, which strongly ties to the crisis of guns being fed back onto the streets, into the hands of gangsters.
According to Taylor, Various countries that have outsourced firearms, with similar socioeconomic and political features, have been evaluated.
“Three countries were privatizing the CFR, with the Dominican Republic being one of them, and that system failed. This is because the company that oversaw that country’s registry prioritized business and not community safety. The second example is Thailand, where functions of the central firearms registry are devolved, or they are given two other government departments which are prone to corruption while being under-resourced. The final example was Jamaica, where an independent authority was established that reports to the police. That seems to be the most feasible, although the licensing authority was racked by corruption,” explained Taylor.
She further elaborated on the importance of transparency and accountability, especially when it comes to contract details, costs, and measures that will be put in place to ensure that the service provider delivers what it is contracted to do.
“We need to have accountability within our police service so that members of the public start trusting the police again,” added Taylor.
Photo: Gun Free SA/Twitter
