Calls for former African National Congress Chairperson Terror Lekota to account for the disappearance of weapons during his tenure as defence minister should not be dismissed, the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (POPCRU) said on Thursday.

"We would like to reiterate the call made by the South African Security Forces Union (SASFU) that both former chiefs of the South African National Defence Force, Lekota and Mluleki George, should tell the country the whereabouts of the weapons that disappeared during their tenure," the organisation said in a statement.

The fact that Lekota and George had not bothered to investigate the disappearance of the weapons during their tenure as Cabinet ministers raised a lot of suspicions.

"In fact, we are saying, the failures of these former cabinet ministers to deal with this issue while they were still in government amounted to gross dereliction of duty highly punishable because it bordered on treason and coup... plotting," the union said.

There was a need for a commission of inquiry to be launched to investigate the matter.

Sapa