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Since the 2022/23 financial year, 2 523 police firearms have been lost or stolen, potentially making their way into the hands of criminals and gang networks.

This emerges from an answer to a question in Parliament by Wouter Wessels of the Freedom Front Plus to the Acting Minister of Police.

According to the information supplied, the vast majority were stolen, with a small number having been lost. The numbers reported lost or stolen have declined somewhat in the last three of the five years under review.

While the data suggest that the South African Police Service (SAPS) knows how many weapons it manages, insiders within the police tell The Common Sense that internal controls are weak and in reality the police have little idea of how many guns it has or how many have been lost.

The chart below shows the number of guns purportedly stolen and lost by the SAPS between the 2022/23 and 2025/26 financial years.

Of the firearms lost or stolen, the overwhelming majority are handguns. The SAPS issues handguns, particularly the South African-produced Z88 (“Zulu”), which are particularly popular with gangs, as they are reliable, easily concealed and handled.

The breakdown of lost and stolen firearms, in as far as police records mean anything at all, is shown in the chart below:

In addition, 184 920 rounds of ammunition had been stolen.

The SAPS has purportedly introduced mechanisms to prevent the theft, loss, and unauthorised use of official firearms. Newly procured weapons must be marked and tested through an integrated ballistics system before being issued. Firearms and ammunition must be securely stored, while prescribed retention mechanisms, regular inspections, certification, and ammunition marking are used to monitor and trace weapons and ammunition.

In practice, police insiders say, there is chaos.

The acting minister of police, in reply to Wessels, said that of the 80 people convicted between the 2022/23 and 2025/26 financial years, in relation to the theft and loss of firearms and ammunition, 41 were members of the SAPS.