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Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia speaking during the release of third quarter crime stats in Pretoria.
Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia says the murder rate decreased by 8.7% between October and December last year compared to the previous year.
He was speaking at the release of the third-quarter crime statistics in Pretoria.
Cachalia says, despite this, crime levels in the country remain unacceptably high.
“While we have seen double-digit reduction in murder in five provinces, namely KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Free State and the North West, much smaller decreases were recorded in the Western and Eastern Cape, with slight increases recorded in Limpopo and Northern Cape,” says Cachalia.
WATCH | Prof. Firoz Cachalia says while double-digit reductions in murder were seen in five provinces – KZN, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Free State, and North West – much smaller decreases were recorded in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape, with slight increases in Limpopo and Northern… pic.twitter.com/YedPcnudeK
— SABC News (@SABCNews) February 20, 2026
Additionally, Cachalia has announced plans to establish a national community patroller programme to help improve community safety.
Last week, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that soldiers would be deployed in three provinces to assist the police in combating crime.
Cachalia says the patroller programme will run across all provinces.
“I’ve asked the Civilian Secretariat for the police to develop the concept and funding model with the objective of enabling community members to receive training and stipends to assist with improving safety in their localities. I learned quite a lot from the way we approached this in Gauteng many years ago. We had a very successful community program, but the way we thought about it was as a single window. So, in distressed families, these stipends have the possibility of adding to the income stream to such families,” says Cachalia.
Livestream | SA Police release third quarter crime statistics:
