Safe Citizen says repeated letters to QCTO went unanswered for two months, prompting the organisation to invoke the Promotion of Access to Information Act to demand records.
By Staff Reporter
A civil society group has taken legal action to force a government body to state whether it plans to take over the oversight of firearm training in South Africa.
Safe Citizen Alliance lodged a formal request on 1 October for the records of the Quality Council for Trades and Occupations (QCTO). It wants to know whether the council plans to replace the body that has overseen firearm instructor training for more than a decade.
“This application does not arise in a vacuum,” said Safe Citizen leader Jonathan Deal. “It is the direct and foretold consequence of a course of correspondence stretching back more than two months.”
The group says it wrote to QCTO repeatedly and received no reply.
“QCTO has chosen that outcome by its own conduct,” Deal said. “This application follows.”
The request was made under the Promotion of Access to Information Act, which allows the public to demand records from state bodies. It was sent to QCTO chief executive Vijayen Naidoo, with the Deputy Minister of Higher Education and Training copied in.
Safe Citizen says it has heard that QCTO is considering setting up its own in-house unit to do the work, backed by the police’s Training Division. This has not been confirmed.
“Credible information had reached Safe Citizen that an internal QCTO function, underpinned by the SAPS Training Division, was under consideration as PFTC’s replacement,” Deal said.
The PFTC is the South African Professional Firearms Trainers Council, which has overseen the quality of the country’s firearm instructor qualification, known as Qualification 50480, since April 2013. Safe Citizen says it has issued and verified about 3.5 million training units “without a single substantiated quality-assurance failure”.
The group says it is acting for the public. It brought the request “in the public interest and on behalf of affected citizens, learners, employers, training providers and communities concerned with public safety”, Deal said.
He said any change to the system was a safety matter.
“A training-quality-assurance transition affecting the competency standard for firearm handling in South Africa is, on its face, a matter of public safety.”
Years of disputes
QCTO and the council have clashed before. In 2021, Safe Citizen says, QCTO tried to hand over the council’s role to the Safety and Security Sector Education and Training Authority (SASSETA) without consulting anyone. A court order restored the council’s mandate.
In June 2024, QCTO again moved to shift the qualification to SASSETA from 1 July. The council went to court to stop a rival training programme from being developed. On 2 October 2024, the case was struck off the roll because it was not urgent. The wider dispute continued in further litigation.
On 30 June this year, the qualification was extended to December 2028. Two weeks later, on 14 July, a realigned version appeared in Government Gazette No. 54992. Safe Citizen understands it is meant to succeed the old one and says the council was commissioned, at industry expense, to help design it.
Questions unanswered
Safe Citizen made a detailed submission on the new qualification on 27 July. On 31 July, it asked QCTO what it had done, beyond publishing the notice in the Gazette, to tell the people affected. It asked for a reply by 3 August.
On 1 September, it sent a formal notice with nine questions and asked for answers by 15 September.
“Safe Citizen said plainly, in writing, on 1 September 2026, that continued silence would leave it no alternative but to invoke its rights under PAIA,” Deal said.
An open letter to Naidoo went with it. In it, the group said it preferred that “a working system with an unblemished record of more than a decade” not be interrupted without a good reason.
The deadline passed. On 7 September, the group launched a weekly public campaign, the “Safe Citizen Monday Reality Check”. As of 1 October, Deal said, “no substantive response of any kind has been received from QCTO, DHET, or any copied recipient”.
What the group wants
The request lists 12 types of records. These include any plans to change the council’s role, papers on a QCTO unit backed by the police, correspondence between QCTO and the police since 1 January 2024, and minutes of meetings at which the matter was discussed.
Safe Citizen also wants to see any study on the social and economic effects of the change, which the Presidency requires for major regulatory changes.
“No such assessment has been disclosed, referenced in Gazette 54992, or produced to Safe Citizen despite specific request,” Deal said. “Safe Citizen requires QCTO and DHET either to produce it, or to confirm candidly that none exists.”
The group says its concerns “will not survive scrutiny once the records are produced”.
What happens next
QCTO has 30 days to decide, which means roughly the end of October. It can extend this by up to 30 days in certain cases. If it refuses, it must give reasons. Safe Citizen says it will appeal and, if necessary, go to court.
Deal said the group would still prefer a reply over a fight.
“That door remains open. It will not, however, remain open indefinitely, and Safe Citizen will pursue this matter, in the public interest, through every lawful avenue available to it for as long as it takes to obtain a straight answer.”