Relicensing at the last minute!

**Schalk** · 27-03-2009, 08:35

Good morning all.

I thought I would give some feedback on my experience yesterday at the Lyttleton Police Station in Centurion.

I was warned beforehand to arrive early, because of the masses of people expected. So I arrived at the police station at 04:00 yesterday morning, to find myself somewhere between the 40th and 50th place in line. The guy in front was there just after 01:00.

SAPS seems to have the process down pretty well after 4 years. They started processing applications at 08:00, which means there was a 7 hour wait for the guy in front, and 4 hours up to that point for us guys further back. By 08:00 the queue already consisted of about 200 people, streching around the building.

My turn for processing arrived exactly at 11:00, in other words again a 7 hour wait from arrival to the start of the process. Finished with evertyhing at 12:40.

So all in all, due to my own stupidity, 9 hours spent (of which 5 in the sun) to get everything handed in and paid for. Now the wait begins.

Throughout the process the SAPS officers :police: were very friendly and helpful, trying their best to get everything sorted as quickly as possible.
Must be as much of a pain for them as it was for us.

Three observations: I asked a couple of the officers and civilian staff about a possible extention of the deadline (31 March 09). They were consistent in saying that they felt this was very unlikely to happen, and that with the Confed Cup soccer coming up a lot of manpower would be needed for that, limiting their resources. In fact, the Firearms Office in Lyttleton were staying open until midnight on Tuesday to provide for extra time (and in fact will be closed on the 1st of April).

If your birthday does not fall within the period from October to December, due for relicensing now, you have to sign an affidavit giving your reasons for not applying in time. I assume that procrastination will not be considered as a good reason.

If you arrive there with the correct forms, correctly completed, all copies certified and all supporting documentation sorted out, you will save yourself quite a bit of time. Quite a few people arrived yesterday with only their training certificates, not a form 517 or 517(e) in sight. I imagine the process took them quite a bit longer. Also, some of the people around me in line had their forms completed, except for the motivation in the "Annexure A" document. They sat there and wrote three lines on the form as motivation. Will be interested to find out if handing in 10 typed pages in as motivation gets a better result than three hastily written lines.

Cheers.

**SWATG** · 27-03-2009, 08:59

Schalk, I am glad to see that you went from 2 pages to 10, good on you, so yes let us sit back and see the results.

**abhm** · 27-03-2009, 16:45

3 lines, mine was 45 pages Excluding supporting documents!

**flysouth** · 27-03-2009, 17:32

In fact, the Firearms Office in Lyttleton were staying open until midnight on Tuesday to provide for extra time (and in fact will be closed on the 1st of April).

If your birthday does not fall within the period from October to December, due for relicensing now, you have to sign an affidavit giving your reasons for not applying in time. I assume that procrastination will not be considered as a good reason.

Since the Act prescribes that the deadline for applications is midnight 31 March, the cops have little choice but to accommodate that requirement - they are not doing anyoine a favour.

Acceptable reasons which are acceptable for not complying within the due period are stipulated in the Act - and procrastination and "I forgot" don't cut it. Things like proveable hospital stay, posting overseas etc are required.

There are going to be a lot of angry people when the dust settles.