Tanzanian parliament approves stiff penalty for illegal firearms use

Tanzanian parliament on Thursday passed a new law designed to provide for the general control and management of firearms and ammunition.

The new law, tabled in the parliament by the east African country's deputy minister for Home Affairs Pereila Ame Silima, said a person convicted of illegal possession of a firearm will be jailed for not less than five years or pay a fine not less than 6, 000 U.S. dollars or both.

Silima told the National Assembly in the political capital Dodoma that the new law will also control licensing, possession, importation, exportation, transit, dealing, brokering and tracing of firearms and ammunition.

The new law comes at a time when there have been incidents of illegal possession of firearms by criminal gangs who attack police stations and steal guns and ammunition.

Silima said the new law prohibited importation and ownership of toy pistols that parents purchase for their children.

"Section 11 of the new law strictly prohibits persons who are yet to attain 25 years to own any firearm," he told the House.

The law also proposed that every small arms and light weapons shall be marked with a national identification code.

"This means when the law becomes effective on July 1, 2015, all people with small arms and light weapons will have to go to the registrar of firearms to have their weapons marked," he said.

John Chiligati, the acting chairperson of the Parliamentary Defence and Security Committee, said no person will be allowed to possess a firearm unless he has received proper training and secured a valid license from the registrar of firearms.

Chiligati said that the owner of any firearm also needs to obtain a certificate of competence to prove that he/she is a Tanzania citizen or a holder of Tanzania residence permit and is mentally stable who is not inclined to violence. Endi