TANZANIA: 30-day grace period to surrender illegal arms

BY GADIOSA LAMTEY

Guns held by civilians in Tanzania are estimated to be about 550,000 and that count includes illegal firearms that the government only yesterday issued a thirty day ultimatum to all persons in possession to surrender them to police with immediate effect ahead of the up coming country wide operation to retrieve all unregistered guns and at which point all found in possession will be heavily penalized.

In fact according to gunpolicy.org , which is the International Firearm Injury Prevention and Policy, the number of licensed gun owners in Tanzania is only 69,840, the difference between that figure and the one above, is in the hundreds of thousands, and represented the estimated number of illegal firearms in the country.

Given the facts, addressing the press yesterday, Home Affairs Minister Dr. Emmanuel Nchimbi appealed to all in possession of the said illegal guns to willfully surrender them under the reassurance that they will in that event face no penalties but the thirty days (count begun yesterday) is their one and only chance to do so.

Crime rate in the country has increased, reported the minister and according to him, just between January and September of this year, there were 876 armed robbery incidents with 62 of the involved weapons confirmed stolen from legal owners.

Dr. Nchimbi further revealed that, a total of 304 weapons have been in the course off the year been seized in different crime incidents and that number has the authorities worried. The worry is valid for in the span of but nine months, 138 civilians as well as six police officers have lost their lives to the illegal weapons while the estimated property loss is 4.5bn/-.

Last year, on the 23 of July, Inspector General of Police (IGP) Said Mwema, took a similar initiative but in his case the grace period was extended to three months prior to the search-and-arrest operation. Some 500 firearms were surrendered in that campaign.

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN (05/12/2012): http://www.ippmedia.com/frontend/index.php?l=48686