Afternoon All
There was a second urgent application launched by the PFTC to interdict various state role players such as the QCTO and SASSETA from developing a skills program to replace the current firearm training qualification.
In simple terms the current training takes 2 to 3 days in order to be trained to apply for a competency certificate. A skills programme must , by law , be a minimum of two weeks long.
Many problems become immediately apparent. Very few people can afford to take two weeks off work to qualify to obtain a competency certificate and the cost would increase proportionately to the amount of time required. Trainers have also indicated that there is not enough training material or training required to fill two weeks.
The PFTC raised concerns that the state role players do not have a legal mandate to quality assure firearm training which vests in the PFTC by virtue of the 11 July court order and that policy and consultative requirements had been circumvented by the QCTO and SASSETA.
The judge ruled the application was not urgent and struck the matter from the roll and gave what we perceive to be a mild cost order. He excluded the cost of a second advocate and gave costs on a lower than normal scale. He did so because he indicated in argument that although the matter was not urgent, there may be contempt of the 11 July court order and that he had serious concerns with both the rationale for the skills program and the manner in which the state roll players had gone about trying to development the skills program when there was no apparent need for it and in the absence of a satisfactory explanation why it was needed.
We will be back again in court shortly.

Latest update from Martin Hood.

Morning All

Happy New year . My first post for the year is not a happy one.

Two important issues need to be discussed and I will start with the first, firearm training.

Many of you are aware , and I summarise , of the function of the PFTC is quality assuring firearm training.

If you have a competency certificate, you would have been trained by an accredited training institution who , upon successful completion , would submit your results to the PFTC who verify and quality assure the training and issue a statement of results.

A comparison is Umalusi who do exactly the same for matric exams.

This system has been in place since 2013 and is self funding and because it is not government run, has much less fraud and corruption.

The firearm training qualification 50480 expired in June last year , like many thousands of others and was not extended. The PFTC had submitted a new qualification but , typically of organs of state , SASSETA and the QCTO were too busy at the feeding trough to approve it.

We obtained a court order extending the qualification pending the finalisation and registration of a new qualification , and the litigation is pending, again with government and organs of state doing everything possible to delay getting into court , aided and abetted by highly paid [ by you] private lawyers.

The proposed solution , from SASSETA and the QCTO , which involves taking away the quality assurance function from the PFTC and putting it , presumably back inhouse to SASSETA , is a skills development program to replace the qualification.

You might think " OK, so what? "

Here's the issue. It is proclaimed educational policy that a skills development program must be a minimum of two weeks long .

Before any of you say "no way , it won't happen" , it is .

If you want to obtain business use training for all four categories of firearm possession , ie handgun rifle, shotgun, semiauto rifle /PCC my calculation adds up to 800 hours of training or 16 weeks of training.

Think about who can afford to and has the time do this and what the consequences will be for firearm ownership.

From Martin Hood's WhatsApp group.

Important post this - VERY !

Important post this - VERY !

Indeed it is, many will brush this off as hearsay or non of a concern.

Gunsite Forum
https://www.gunsite.co.za/forums/showthread.php?111246-PFTC-The-Professional-Firearms-Trainers-Council/page3

Mybroadband forum:

https://mybroadband.co.za/forum/threads/pftc-the-professional-firearms-trainers-council.1298468/post-33576410

Martin Hood on Facebook.

Context of the FCA / PSIRA proposals:

Evening All

I have been involved in a mining security situation which epitomizes what a corrupt and run down country we live in.

A registered  and compliant security  company tries to protect legitimate mining interests but the " community " objects. This results in court orders and violence.

The police response is as follows.

Firstly, I have drone footage of police officials in the company of persons carrying AK style rifles: no security company uniforms or other form of identification showing they are legitimate  security officers. No arrests made by saps for contravening the PSIRA act, or section  84 of the FCA or  regulation 21 thereof.

If my client arrests illegal miners and confiscates equipment , including a truck full of stolen ore, the persons and property are immediately released by saps and saps will not open cases  based on complaints by my client.

There is shooting and a dead body is discovered some way away from the scene . Saps arrests all of my clients personnel and confiscate all of their equipment including armoured vehicles as " evidence "  effectively emasculating the protection of the mine.  The armoured vehicles clearly have multiple bullet strikes on them and some blown out tyres  yet my clients are the perpetrators of the violence.  Coincidence?  Saps  also continue to try and " mediate" between the parties  to allow the continuation of illegal mining activities. Corruption? Undoubtably .

It gets worse. You have to appear in court within 48 hours of arrest  unless it's over a weekend. It is and saps refuse access to the detainees . In court the investigating officer requests a seven day further postponement because.... he has to drive to the Northern cape to check some , not all mind you , addresses of the detainees. Good old taxpayer money being wasted because he does not want to phone his colleagues in the NC to do it for him . WTF? Postponement  granted.  This BTW was after there was initially no magistrate and no prosecutor available in court.

On the second  appearance  the matter gets crowded out to the following day [ this can happen] and then when the bail application commences the investigating officer  suddenly decides to oppose bail. There  then occurs a power cut in court [ the account probably has not been paid]  and the matter has to be postponed: there is a problem however in that the prosecutor is not available for 17 court days  so the matter is postponed for a further three weeks.

This is not justice folks nor is it what a civilized state should be like.

It is a complete breakdown of different systems on a multiplicity of levels  to the point where nothing functions as it should and injustice results.

Be very afraid of the future.

Link: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1B5wnJM88J/

Martin Hood explains the current firearms training crisis in South Africa.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4s-oAhv4mY