Fire Arms Licensing Board Chairman, Charles Mukindia.
All firearm certificate holders in Nairobi will undergo a fresh and mandatory vetting from today until Thursday where the same exercise will replicate to other parts of the country.
This comes after Interior Cabinet Secretary Dr. Fred Matiang’i said all civilian firearm holders have until March 19 to get bio-metric cards.
According to the Licensing Board Chairman Charles Mukindia, holders need to present supporting documents for all licenses acquired as well as all fire arms and ammunition.
He stated that the process is mandatory and those targeted in Nairobi region will appear before a team at the Police Pavilion in South C adding that upon verification the holders shall proceed for ballistic analysis at the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.
Gun and some bullets.The Fire Arms Licensing Board is Seeking to have all guns in the hands of the civilians registered with the Board.
He explained that the ballistic analysis test will cost Sh 2,000 while the new smart card will demand Sh 5,000, after which the board chair said a new license smart card shall be issued after 10 days.
The smart card which will be fixed with a microchip will have all individual’s details a that move is aimed at curbing crimes that involve use of such weapons. It is also an aim of the government to have a proper record of firearm holders, and to ensure that all police reservists are registered.
Those excluded from the vetting process and not required to book are personnel who are serving and retired from National Police Service (NPS), Kenya Defence Forces (KDF), Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), National Intelligence Service (NIS), Kenya Forest Service (KFS), Kenya Prisons Service (KPS), and those from the security sector.
They will however be required to fill in a form and obtain a unique identification number from the vetting venue and then proceed to DCI for ballistic tests.
Kenya has about 15,000 licensed gun holders but almost 3,000 of them have fake licenses, a thing the government wants to arrest.