Speaking during the 2020 arms raffle draw held at the Botswana Police Service headquarters recently, Marathe said the rise has forced the Bboard to increase the number of permits from 50 to 75 this year. She stated that the decision was reached in order to meet the general public demand as demonstrated by the number of applications received. “More people, due to a host of varying reasons, are showing interest in having a firearm. These are mostly farmers and professional hunters. This year we received 12,453 applications of short guns as compared to 9,494 applicants last year. In addition, we have also received 8,537 applications for rifles, but we will only give 75 permits each respectively,” she said.
Marathe revealed that the decision was deliberatively taken to support government’s initiative of permitting the citizens to benefit from the wildlife and tourism industry. She added that such benefits include amongst others professional hunting, ownership of game animals and protection of livestock. Furthermore, she stated that globalisation and the advent of advanced technology are presenting positive development as they can also negatively affect how, as the security custodians, they could effectively control the proliferation of arms and ammunition.
