More resources to be mobilised for next voter reg weekend: Cachalia

Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia says his department will be mobilising more resources to tighten security going into the second voter registration weekend and the upcoming local government elections.

The next voter registration will be on the 1 and 2 August.

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) recorded 2.9 million voter registrations in June, which increased the national voters’ roll to 28.5 million voters.

Cachalia was speaking at the Inter-ministerial Committee on Migration media briefing in Hatfield, Pretoria.

” One of the objectives I’m hoping we’re going to achieve in the run-up to the elections, and nobody here will say that we shouldn’t be budgeting to ensure that we have a peaceful election. And we’ve already seen, I think, 12 councillors have already been murdered. Must I, as police minister, sit back and say, well, I’m not going to spend the resources that are required to ensure that those who are killing councillors are investigated? The head of the Electoral Commission told me that police operation that they saw was the best ever around the registration weekend. And we’ve got another one coming up.”

Cachalia has also hit back at critics over government’s R600-million spend during protests on the 30 June against undocumented foreign nationals.