WATCH LIVE: Cele delivers South Africa’s worrying crime stats

Police Minister Bheki Cele is on Friday 17 February presenting the latest quarterly crime statistics, covering the period between 1 October 2022 and 31 December 2022.

The press conference is taking place at the Imbizo Media Centre in Cape Town, and we’ve include the live stream of the event below.

Watch: Cele presents crime stats

Every quarter, the crime statistics paint a worrying picture of the state of crime in South Africa.

Cele always says several measures to address these challenges will be implemented, and that “more boots are needed on the ground”.

However, this year, many are calling for “his violent reign as police minister” to end.

The Democratic Alliance’s (DA) Andrew Whitfield said “crime in SA is a war which is being completely and utterly lost due to a vacuum in crime intelligence, poorly trained police officers and under-resourced police stations”.

The latest release of the crime statistics for the third quarter of 2022/23, for the period October to December 2022, reveals the unabated slaughter of South Africa’s citizens, Whitfield said.

“For the first time in South Africa’s history, murders increased above 80 murders and rapes above 135 rapes every single day. In what other country in the world would a Police Minister still keep his job under such circumstances?”