Guns and ammo stored unprotected by police

Firearms and ammunition sufficient for a small army lie unprotected in a dilapidated kitchen on the Pretoria base of a specialised counter-terrorism police unit - just metres from an informal settlement.

The base, the headquarters of the National Intervention Unit in Pretoria, was to have been refurbished at the start of last year in a R127-million project that involved the police and the national Public Works Department.

But all that is evident - after more than three years of work and R21-million spent - is a crumbling construction site, an open, raw-sewage pit and the former kitchen with missing doors.

Inside the kitchen, stacked in rows, are 128 firearm safes. None is secured to the floor as required by the Firearms Control Act.

There are no armed guards outside the kitchen to protect the weapons. The base has civilian guards at its entrance but none is armed and none is stationed along the base's perimeter.

The safes are assigned to the unit's operational members. Police sources said inside each safe is an R5 semi-automatic assault rifle, a 9mm pistol and at least 100 rounds of ammunition.

Police sources said in total more than 10000 rounds of ammunition and 256 guns are in the safes.

NIU members are trained for high-risk operations, including countering terrorist attacks, VIP protection and escorting highly dangerous criminals.

In a confidential internal police document, dated September 18 2015, and titled "Facility Management, Mobilisation Support Services, Bon Accord, National Intervention Unit", which The Times has seen, it is stated that police management has been alerted to the situation.

It said the unit's safes were not stored in accordance with police instructions and the Firearms Control Act.

"The decisions of the finance office [which wants to replace the broken kitchen doors with the same poor-quality doors] have huge repercussions and force units to operate against legislation."

The document calls for an investigation into the illegal storage of safes and firearms at the base.

The failure by the police to safeguard the weapons adequately has been slammed.

The SA Gun Owners' Association's Martin Hood described the failure as "criminal".

"It is against the law. People must be charged. Police management must answer why they are not practising the very laws they impose on private gun owners."

Less than 400m from the kitchen are about 100 families living in an informal settlement on the base's perimeter. Although they live outside the perimeter, the ground on which the camp has been built is, say e-mails sent from the Tshwane Metro Police Department to the police, owned by the police.

Sources said the base was often infiltrated by the squatters, who steal equipment from the construction site.

"We go there regularly," said Phineas Moeng, "mayor" of the Matlakeng informal settlement. Moeng and his fellow squatters have lived on the land for nearly 10 years.

Confidential e-mails and reports, warning police management about the base's security risks, have been sent.

The project to refurbish the building ended shortly after it began. Contractor Phumi Trading won the contract in 2012 but ceded it to Clear Choice Builders (CCB).

Phumi Trading accused the Public Works Department and the project's engineers, architects and quantity surveyors of sabotaging its attempt to complete the work.

Phumi Trading said on its website that it had secured numerous multimillion-rand contracts with government departments, including the police. In e-mails from 2014, Phumi Trading complains of being underpaid by R5-million, engineering flaws in architectural drawings that were not rectified, refusal by the police and the Public Works Department to address its complaints, collusion between the department and the project's consultants, its staff being threatened with violence, and department officials ordering it to commit insurance fraud.

In a confidential occupational health and safety compliance report compiled on the project in July 2015, the Public Works Department was criticised for the numerous failings at the site. The report noted that there were no security guards at the site, holes in the fence allowed unauthorised access to the site, equipment was being removed illegally and safety risks were severe and should be attended to as a "matter of urgency".

Duncan Sewada, the Public Works Department's regional manager, refuted Phumi Trading's allegations. He said the contract with Phumi Trading was terminated because it did not perform satisfactorily, "made unfounded claims and abandoned the site".

Sewada, who was involved in the project, was criticised in internal police e-mails - seen by The Times - by senior officers who asked for the urgent intervention of police top management.

Sewada said Phumi Trading was paid R11.63-million and CCB R9.93-million for their work.

Sewada said the department had yet to determine the fines that might be imposed on the contractors for the project's non-completion . He said the site's safety failures were due to the contractors' "non-compliance".

Phumi Trading director David Mokoena said: "We gave evidence to the department about what was going wrong with the project, but we were ignored. We were forced off the project because of what we exposed. The department is now doing damage control for its failings."

SAPS failed to respond to questions.