By Johnathan Paoli
The South African Police Service’s (SAPS) ballistics division is buckling under a backlog of more than 41 000 cases, crippling staff shortages, and operational bottlenecks that threaten the integrity of firearm-related investigations.
Brigadier Mishak Mkhabela, head of the ballistics section at the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) in Silverton, told the Madlanga Commission on Monday that as a result, the unit’s capacity to link guns to crimes was “severely compromised”.
Mkhabela, who joined the police in 1994 and trained as a ballistics analyst for three years, painted a vivid picture of the pressures facing forensic analysts in a country where gun-related crimes continue to surge.
“If anyone wants to appreciate the level of high crime involving firearms in South Africa, one must just visit my strong room, where I keep exhibits. At any given point, I have more than 29 000 firearms, and [with] each of those firearms, a victim has been killed,” he said.
The ballistics section, Mkhabela said, depends heavily on the use of its Integrated Ballistics Identification System (IBIS), which is designed to link bullets and cartridge cases to specific firearms and identify connections between crimes.
While IBIS can generate potential links within 24 hours, Mkhabela said that confirming the matches requires intensive expert analysis.
Currently, only three analysts are qualified to verify these digital matches, each capable of reviewing roughly 200 images per day.
With over 28 000 images awaiting examination, the backlog is formidable.
“The human resource constraints are painfully clear. To fully utilise the system in real time, we need 66 analysts, but we only have 33. That tells you the extent of the challenges we face,” Mkhabela said.
He said that the system costs the police more than R3.8 million per month, but only half its capacity can be used due to the shortage of trained staff.
Multiple firearms recovered in the assassination of Q Tech engineer Armand Swart in April 2024 were later linked to at least 29 other crimes, but the investigative officers were often unaware of these connections, highlighting the inefficiencies caused by limited human resources.
Mkhabela described the work involved in ballistics analysis, from identifying the unique striations and impressions left on bullets by firearms, to restoring obliterated serial numbers using specialised chemicals.
The IBIS system, Mkhabela said, is a powerful tool that can link weapons across multiple crimes, including cash-in-transit heists, taxi violence and hire-for-murder incidents.
But the pace of criminal activity often outstrips the unit’s capacity.
Analysts are required to spend eight hours daily monitoring images, a process he described as exhausting, making it impossible to keep up with the volume of work.
The shortage of skilled staff, combined with the increasing backlog of over 41,000 cases nationally, had left South African investigators working “in the dark” he told the commission.
The commission started hearing evidence concerning the firearms linked to Swart’s murder, who was shot outside his Q Tech office in Vereeniging on 17 April last year, in what police believe was a case of mistaken identity related to costly inflation of parts for a Transnet tender.
According to the commission’s chief evidence leader, Advocate Matthew Chaskalson (SC), two ballistics experts were dispatched to the scene, and within hours, police arrested three suspects and seized multiple firearms and cartridges.
Mkhabela told the commission that a “Captain Magotla” was tasked with analysing the guns in May 2024, completing the analysis by June, and also examined the cartridges recovered from the scene.
Mkhabela said that a subsequent entry in June 2025 requested a review of potential links between these firearms and other crimes, a request which was prioritised.
Key procedural steps included a crime scene report entry on 25 April 2024, and the submission to the laboratory of a bullet retrieved from Swart’s body on 12 August 2024, which Magotla later finalised.
Mkhabela highlighted concerns over the delay in bringing the bullet to the lab, stressing that such delays place significant pressure on ballistics analysts.
Mkhabela’s testimony continues.
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