Police Oversight and Community Safety
- (a) Which foreign countries are identified as major sources of smuggled firearms into the province, (a) what is the current estimated number of illegal firearms in circulation in the province and (c) how many of these firearms are believed to have been smuggled in from outside South Africa;
- (a) how many firearm smuggling syndicates – specifically targeting the province – have been identified in the past three years, (b) how many arrests have been made, (c) how many offenders have been charged and (d) how many successful convictions resulted;
- how many illegal firearms have been confiscated by SAPS in the province in (a) 2023, (b) 2024 and (c) 2025 to date?
(1) (a) Namibia, Lesotho, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Mozambique are the foreign countries identified.
(b) The estimated number of illegal firearms in circulation within the Western Cape is extremely difficult to determine, and any precise figure would be speculative.
Although several firearms are recovered through police operations, these cannot always be conclusively linked to those reported lost or stolen. In many cases the firearm is unidentifiable with serial numbers filed off or altered, requiring a separate and time-consuming identification process. The overall estimation is further complicated by questions of how far back data should be considered.
Accordingly, there is no reliable estimate available for the total number of illegal firearms in circulation in the Western Cape.
(c) The exact number of firearms smuggled into the province cannot be determined; however, 193 firearms traced to Namibia have been recovered within the province.
(2) (a) No smuggling syndicates have been identified in the province for the past three years
(b) None have been specifically implemented in relation to syndicates.
(c) None
(d) None
(3) (a) The extracted data is for the 2023/2024 financial year from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024 and amounts to 974.
(b) The extracted data is for the 2024/2025 financial year from 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025 and amounts to 2853
(c) The statistics for the 2025/2026 financial year cannot be disclosed, as they have not yet been officially released by the acting Minister of Police.
