Remember a couple of months ago when we told you about the gangsters eyeing out the Simon’s Town naval base’s cache of weapons – HERE?

Well, while there was a minor burglary back then, the navy didn’t report it to the police and this past weekend six storerooms in the base were broken into. Six.

The burglary was discovered on Monday.

Missing from the rooms were 77 hand grenades, explosives, Uzi sub-machine guns, R1 rifles, pistols and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. That must have taken some effort, no?

The base, a national key point, was in the news earlier this month when Rapport revealed that security contracts for five of the country’s biggest munitions depots had lapsed, because the military had failed to pay the contractors.

Really now, talk about making yourself a sitting duck.

Other than a brief statement confirming the “loss of various types of military equipment”, SANDF spokesman Brigadier-General Xolani Mabanga didn’t answer any questions relating to the burglary.

All that Captain Lloyd Ramovha, Western Cape Hawks spokesman, said was that “a housebreaking and theft case was being investigated”, according to TimesLive.

Meanwhile, while a case is being taken out as a crime against the state, the naval area is in lockdown.

It has been theorised that the larger weapons taken, such as the 20mm machine guns (have you seen those things?), are being stockpiled for some reason, and can’t be used by one person as they are heavy. They will have to be mounted on vehicles and most probably will be used for armoured cash-in-transit robberies. Ben Coetzee, a small-arms researcher, is highly concerned:

It is an indication that our security services are being targeted to obtain weapons and that people are successfully obtaining these weapons. It shows the lack of security in protecting these weapons.

It’s pretty apparent that this and the other burglaries are a serious flaw in the protection of not only our country’s weapon cache, but our sovereignty as well, whatever that means.

[source:timeslive]