Ian Cameron: 1.8 million citizens abandoned on “stone-age lines of hope”

In his latest interview with Chris Steyn, Ian Cameron, Chair of Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Police, reveals the answer he received from Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia on the number of abandoned 10111 calls: almost 1.8 million during the 2025-26 financial year. “That's about 5,000 calls per day. I mean if we really want to try and quantify it and give people an idea of the human impact of that, imagine you've got 5,000 victims calling for help and those calls are abandoned…He (the Minister) then further admits that genuine emergencies go unanswered. He acknowledged that in some cases, people that are literally facing life-threatening situations cannot connect to available operators because of excessive queues, system disconnections, and limited capacity.” Meanwhile, Cameron also expresses grave concern at the lack of progress with analysis of DNA samples from the 12 Ekurhuleni murders. “The response was shocking because the minister actually failed to provide any kind of a clear account... In fact, the reply explicitly says that the information is not readily available. Why not just answer us? So, I must be honest, I'm doubting the forensic process in this case…You can imagine what it feels like to the families of these victims when they hear this type of thing. “