Listen here.In his latest interview with Chris Steyn, Ian Cameron, the Chairperson of Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Police, talks about the revelation that - in the last four financial years - over 41,000 murders were committed with unlicensed firearms, but fewer than 400 murders with licensed firearms whilst the government is pushing for stricter self defence laws. “There's no doubt that there’s some kind of a political ideological push to disarm and to centralise power…if they should ever succeed with this draconian and absolutely ridiculous piece of legislation, it would result in tyranny.” Commenting on the resignation of IDAC Chief Andrea Johnson, Cameron notes that a “specific faction of people…seemed to be dead set on securing control of certain leadership positions…if you had gained control of especially Crime Intelligence and obviously the office of the National Commissioner, you would have relatively easy access to the Secret Service funds, which obviously is massive amount of money that very often ends up in a political tug-of-war because if you control that and you know how to seemingly use it in the wrong way you would be able to get a lot of money for your campaigning and political work.” He warns: “...we mustn't underestimate how in-depth and detailed a lot of the planning goes to perform some of these bigger, broader strategies. I think it was, is, possibly, might still be, a massive risk to the stability of the criminal justice system.”.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..Edited transcript of the interview.Chris Steyn (00:00.968)The Acting Minister of Police, Firoz Cachalia, has revealed shocking statistics. Let us get the details from Ian Cameron, the Chairperson of Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Police. Welcome, Ian.Ian Cameron (00:15.458)Thank you Chris. Indeed. It comes from a parliamentary question. It's a very important comparison about how many murders in the past four financial years were committed with licensed versus unlicensed firearms.Chris Steyn (00:36.692)Give us that total involving illegal and unlicensed firearms, please Ian.Ian Cameron (00:43.234)Well, before I give you the exact numbers, I think it's important to say that so often we hear the narrative being pushed, especially by certain entities in the State, that gives the impression that licensed firearm owners are the problem and that licensed firearms pose a serious threat to general public safety.Now this data set that comes directly from the South African Police Service proves otherwise. It shows us that 99%, it's just a fraction over 99% of recorded firearm murders that were committed over the past four financial years were committed by unlicensed firearms. So the total amount is just over 41,000 murders that were committed with unlicensed firearms and fewer than 400 murders involved licensed firearms. So I mean the contrast is glaring that the constant almost obsession with attacking lawfully armed licensed firearm owners versus unlicensed firearm owners…this shows that the licensed firearm owners are not the problem. In fact, they hardly pose any threat at all.Chris Steyn (02:11.827)And that small number of killings committed with licensed firearms, many would not have been premeditated murder, but self-defense.Ian Cameron (02:22.382)Well, and that depends from case to case, and that's something we need to go look at. We would need to go even deeper and see, you know, was there prosecution? Was there successful conviction of any kind? What adds insult to injury for the State is that out of those 41,000 murders, 166 of them were committed using what used to belong or once belonged to the State, so firearms that used to be State firearms. This just further emphasises that the State itself very often, whether intentionally or not, provides firearms to illicit firearm networks or illicit firearm owners, and that lawfully armed citizens are not the problem. Now, there's a very important message here.And over the years, we've seen the onslaught from organisations like Gun Free South Africa, et cetera, et cetera. We saw the attempts to change firearm legislation back when Bheki Cele was still the Minister of Police. It was an epic fail. He had to put the legislation on ice. And I think it's soon to be placed back on ice again. Where they want to remove self-defense as a reason or a motivation to own a firearm in South Africa. This in a country where less than 10% of murders are actually properly investigated and solved. And that's not even mentioning the low prosecution rate. So it's physically impossible to do so. And I think this data is the first time in many years that through this parliamentary question, we've actually been led in the exact direction that we need to. It not only further exaggerates and emphasises the State's own sanctioned research that says licensed firearm owners are not the problem, but it goes even further to show that they are virtually no problem at all. The ones that put in the effort to comply with legislation and regulations…Ian Cameron (04:44.224)…are not the ones walking around arbitrarily killing people and arbitrarily killing between 50 and 70 people per day in South Africa. So I am really grateful that we've come to this point because it gives us an opportunity to just further push away this failure of an attempt to disarm lawfully armed citizens.Chris Steyn (05:12.975)Ian, how easy is it to get an illegal firearm these days - and how cheap?Ian Cameron (05:18.754)Well, if we listen to people that have done research on it, you listen to comments by people like Willem Els, you go and listen to, check out the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime. It's not difficult at all. If you look at the amount of firearms being seized in places like Nyanga or Langa, Alexandria, even Mitchell's Plain. You can go look at these areas and you see that there certainly is a constant flow of illicit firearms. The interesting part Chris is that recently we've actually been seeing an increase in brand new firearms as well. Firearms that weren't previously owned by licensed firearm owners, but that was somehow smuggled. Whether they came in from, you know, sea port side or through other borders, I don't know. I don't work directly with that. But the long and the short of it is that there is a tremendous supply. Remember, and I think I've said it to you before, if we look at the Global Initiative for Transnational Organised Crime and the research they've done, they've previously indicated that in the southern African region, there are over 3.2 million illicit firearms in circulation. Now, I think that would likely be a very conservative number because at the rate at which we're seeing certain illicit firearm crime increase there must be more or heavier supplies being pushed into South Africa.Chris Steyn (06:59.709)So the government is obviously losing or has lost the war on illegal firearms, whilst forging ahead with legislation that would effectively disarm private citizens and leave them defenseless.Ian Cameron (07:13.152)Right, so I mean it just makes no sense whatsoever and I asked this question a few months back to the Police Civilian Secretariat where I said to the secretary, but you know, what have you done to enforce your own rules and regulations with regards to the Central Firearm Registry? That's a total mess that it shouldn't be in. What have you done to ensure that we don't see the amount of firearm losses that we see currently from State Armouries? I mean, in the last financial year, SAPS lost almost 800 firearms. Now that may have been, you know, they may have been lost. Some may have been stolen, may have been supplied to illicit networks. So, you know, I don't understand why they keep pushing on or I choose not to or choose to think that I don't understand. But there's no doubt that there's a political, some kind of a political ideological push to disarm and to centralise power. Now let me tell you one thing, if they should ever succeed with this draconian and absolutely ridiculous piece of legislation, it would result in tyranny. We've seen it around the world. We saw what happened in Venezuela, back in the day in Germany, currently in parts of Mexico where entire cartels by far outnumber and dominate any form of State capacity and literally control entire regions. So it's a very very dangerous thing when it's only the State that has the monopoly on arms. We are totally pro-regulation. It's important that solid regulation does exist but it must not further infringe or actually make people more unsafe because of the total schlep and frustration that goes along with it.Chris Steyn (09:22.329)And it's already incredibly hard to get a firearm license for law-abiding citizens. It's very difficult.Ian Cameron (09:29.602)Yeah, it's a frustration, right? I mean, at the moment, a lot of people know that I live in Paarl and, you know, at the Paarl police station itself, the backlog in terms of firearm licenses has just increased drastically over the last few months just because of certain staff changes and so on. The problem is that this entire system is based on paper, based on specific human capacity, whereas a lot of it could have been digitised a long time ago. Money was previously budgeted. The CFR, up until today, despite all of the investment done in the structure, allegedly done, it hasn't seen the development that it was meant to see, and it hasn't seen the improvement that it was meant to see. And remember, furthermore, that they're trying to get hold of the training capacity and facilities as well. So there's a broader onslaught. You also have the attempted changes of private security regulations, the proposed PSiRA amendment regulations, where they also want to change certain things. So there's no doubt that there's an attempt to grab control of any form of private security or safety measures that individual citizens try to put in place because of the gap that's left by poor performance by government.Chris Steyn (11:04.655)Ian, let's talk about something else. The sudden resignation of IDAC Chief Andrea Johnson. Surely this will have wide ranging implications for some of the big cases she worked on.Ian Cameron (11:17.858)Yeah, I think we were expecting it with the way that the testimony was going at the Madlanga Commission. I think what stood out was the fact that there were quite a number of things where she almost seemed confused, that's the right word, unsure of whether they took the right decision in the past or not, but it will have an effect. It especially has an effect on the credibility of not only IDAC but also the NPA. The bad part is that everyone in IDAC is not bad. It's the same with SAPS. Everyone in SAPS is not bad and I think this just further increases the already very hectic mistrust or distrust in systems or institutions like IDAC or even the South African Police Service. So yeah, it's unfortunate that it's come to this point, but we were expecting it.Chris Steyn (12:25.925)She had barely resigned when charges were provisionally withdrawn against Crime Intelligence boss General Dumisani KhumaloIan Cameron (12:35.35)Yeah, what's interesting about it and this stood out to me so far, I I know she's busy with her testimony still, but something that stood out was the fact that a lot of the charges and investigations weren't necessarily because of serious organised crime for which they were meant to or established to investigate in their specific mandate or corruption, but it was almost as though they thought they would anticipate it happening and therefore they had to now investigate. So it became quite confusing to listen to parts of the testimony and I think, you know, the commissioners and the evidence leaders almost made it impossible to escape the contradictions during the testimony. So, so yeah. It has been provisionally withdrawn. It will be very interesting. I'd be quite surprised if they were to bring them back because they really have to be very, very sure of their case if they were to do so.Chris Steyn (13:52.916)Well, Ian, maybe this is a good time to talk about what could have happened if all the evidence we have heard over the past year has not emerged. Special Leave Police Minister Senzo Mchunu could have become the president of the African National Congress and possibly president of the country. Generals Shadrack Sibiya could have become National Commissioner.Ian Cameron (14:15.319)Yeah.Chris Steyn (14:21.12)General Kahn, Feroz Kahn, could have become the head of Crime Intelligence and Johnson herself might have ended up heading the NPA.Ian Cameron (14:31.416)Yeah, there's no doubt Chris, mean, we've repeated the almost the what-ifs, because that was a definite scenario. I mean, everyone knew that there was a specific faction of people that seemed to be dead set on securing control of certain leadership positions. It's very, very important that we don't lose sightof what was anticipated back then, specifically the part of taking control of the management of the South African Police Service. And if you look at some of the charges now, and especially those that are provisionally withdrawn, it does make it look quite suspicious, especially towards, you know, parts of the senior management of the South African Police Service. One has to wonder and must ask whether it wasn't something that was orchestrated somehow by some of the names that you've mentioned to gain more control. Because remember, if you had gained control of especially Crime Intelligence and obviously the office of the National Commissioner, you would have relatively easy access to the Secret Service funds, which obviously is massive amount of money that very often ends up in a political tug of war because if you control that and you know how to seemingly use it in the wrong way you would be able to get a lot of money for your campaigning and political work.Chris Steyn (16:24.559)I think we still need to find out who mastermind it, who is the mastermind or the masterminds.Ian Cameron (16:32.214)Isn't it interesting though, because if you look at Mr. Cat Matlala and you look at what was uncovered over the last few weeks at the Madlanga Commission, you look at the role that General Mulefi Fani, the Head of Supply Chain Management that's currently on suspension, that he played in illicit supply chain activities or wrongful supply chain activities and procurement processes, and also the Medicare 24 contract, and the link that General Fani has or had with General Feroz Khan, it does seem like there was a longer term strategy at play. And it's also interesting that a lot of the dates that they refer back to at the Madlanga Commission touch on the COVID-19 time period when General Fani was still, I believe, working at National Treasury as a Chief Procurement Officer and was one of the people that assisted at that time with the facilitation of a whole big procurement process of PPE for the South African Police Service. That was later, as we've previously discussed, investigated and findings made by the SIU.Certainly, I've got no doubt we mustn't underestimate how in-depth and detailed, a lot of the planning goes to perform some of these bigger, broader strategies. I think it is a, was, is, possibly, might still be a massive risk to the stability of the criminal justice system.Chris Steyn (18:23.699)Well, Ian, if we look at..we can only imagine what was at stake for these people. Is it any wonder that people were so desperate to discredit General Mkhwanazi?Ian Cameron (18:36.206)Yeah, so look, I think General Mkhwanazi… everything that he's done is by no means perfect. None of us, I think, have any kind of a way of saying we do everything perfectly. But if it weren't for that day, a lot of the processes that unfolded after the press conference wouldn't have happened. So the Madlanga Commission wouldn't have started. The Ad-Hoc Committee for what it was worth wouldn't have kicked off. And I think it's important to give credit to the fact that it ignited a far bigger inquiry process that's led to a lot of investigation work and a lot of results as well. I think the fact that we've already seen arrests, we've seen court appearances, seen movement that we haven't seen in my opinion from any Commission in the past 15 to 20 years, I think it's important to acknowledge that.Chris Steyn (19:46.589)Do you think this could be the big turning point for the South African Police Force?Ian Cameron (19:51.727)I think it can be a turning point. I listened to the acting Police Minister's police Reset Strategy over the weekend.I am very concerned about the fact that on the 30th of June, the private sector had to be reeled in to assist the South African Police Service. But now an entire strategy is announced. From what I know, no one that was part of the 30th of June was consulted in any waySo I guess their answer would be, you're very difficult to satisfy. Well, yes, because the results that we see are usually lacking in every single way. We haven't seen any radical action being taken. We hear a lot of big things, but from the police itself, we haven't seen any radical movement. The only movement that we've seen was forced movement because of the Madlanga Commission. I'm concerned because they say there's this big focus on organised crime, but you can't do that without a decent intelligence structure. Our intelligence capacity and the South African Police Service is significantly broken, significantly lacking and hasn't nearly utilised the relevant budget or even received the relevant budget in many cases to be able to do the work that they're meant to do. Yeah, I'm concerned. I don't want to say it's a turning point yet. I think it's an opportunity, but we'll have to wait and see.Chris Steyn (21:34.227)Thank you. That was Ian Cameron, the Chairperson of Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Police, speaking to BizNews. I'm Chris Steyn. Thank you, Ian.Ian Cameron (21:43.993)Thanks, Chris.