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Fire Arms

The Firearms Control Act 60 of 2000 (FCA): Purpose and Implications
SASSETA’s Role

The Firearms Control Act 60 of 2000 (FCA): Purpose and Implications

RPL is an integral part of the skills development process as it is the ideal tool to assess competence and pave the way to training interventions that lead to qualifications.
In the first four years of the new South Africa, 2,5 million South Africans were given permission to own about 4,2 million firearms. Between 1994 and 1998 the number of murders committed with firearms rose from 42% to 49%. The number of illegal firearms is unknown, but the South African Police Service recovered more than 14 000 in 2003. The FCA was approved by cabinet on 2 April 2003 to replace the outdated Arms and Ammunition Act 75 of 1969.

The FCA’s stated purpose is to:

The Challenge

When assessing, the challenge the FCA would present, SASSETA sketched the following scenario:
From 2005 to 2008, the firearms legislation requires existing firearm owners to renew their firearm licences. There are an estimated 2,5 million licensed firearm owners in the country.
They will need to renew their licences according to their birth months, matched to a specific year. So, those born in January, February and March must renew in 2005, those born in April, May and June in 2006, and so on.
South African birth rates are more or less constant from January to August and again from October to December, when they dip a little. September consistently shows a rise in South African birth rates. It follows then that there will be more or less the same number of firearm owners applying for renewals in years 2005 and 2006, a rise in 2007 (where the month of September falls) and a drop in 2008.
RPL offers numerous benefits:

Year Annual Per month
2005 723 008 72 300 (March to December, 16 432 per week)
2006 721 292 60 108
2007 741 884 61 824
2008 673 816 56 151

South Africans tend to leave legislative things to the last minute and we believe this will be no exception.

What this graph tells us is that we are not likely to have 16 000 renewal applications per month over a 12-month period. Rather, by August we can expect to have processed no more than 50% of renewal applications – i.e. in the eighth month. That leaves us with four months to process the other 50%, with a near unmanageable peak in October/November.

The SETA is geared to deliver learner achievement certificates on a two- to three-week turnaround, based on approximately 16 000 applications a month. This translates into about 762 certificates per working day. It will not be possible to maintain a 15-day turnaround should the number of applications increase significantly. We estimate that we will add five working days to the turnaround time for every 100 additional applications we receive per day.

Accepting the realities of a slow start at the beginning of every renewal year, we need to get the renewal pattern graph to look like this, at the very least (see figure 2 below):

Shifting the “bulge” back into the middle of the year so that our busy period starts in April, peaks over July and August and then begins to drop slowly towards year-end, will benefit the SETA, SAPS and the firearm-owning public. The SETA will have a better control over its turnaround time and there will be less chance of a carry-over of applications from one year to the next.
Communication, encouragement and spelling out the consequences of waiting until the last minute is the best, most practical way to shift the bulge.

By December 2004, we had a total of 211 accredited training sites for firearms training countrywide.

Since October 2004, the SETA has received an average of 1 000 applications for learner achievement certificates per month from these accredited training sites. This is about 6.3% of the weekly output we expect with the rollout of the unit standard.

Note: this scenario was a primary motivator for favouring the FCA Theory Test system over traditional testing.

SASSETA’s Role

SAQA as an Education and Training Quality Assurance body (ETQA) accredited SASSETA in July 2005. One of its functions in this role is to promote high-quality education and training in the sector and to accredit training providers to deliver qualifications and unit standards registered on the National Qualifications Framework (NQF).

The FCA dictates that all training providers offering training and development in firearms use, be accredited in line with the Skills Development Act 97 of 1998. SASSETA’s role as accreditation body for firearms training providers is legislated in Section 7(1)(d) and Section 80(1)(3) of the Act. It states that an official institution must ensure that the prescribed training is provided only by a person registered in terms of SAQA (the Skills Development Act no 97 of 1998) and who is accredited with SASSETA as a service provider to provide training in the safe use and handling of firearms.

SASSETA’s role essentially is to assure the quality of the training and testing surrounding the Firearms Control Act.
To fulfil this, it will:

Page Created: Friday, October 17, 2008