More than 4 million 10111 calls made in Gauteng: Here’s how many were dropped or unanswered

In Gauteng, over 4 million emergency calls were made to the South African Police Service's 10111 line in the 2025-26 financial year, with 14% of those calls, amounting to nearly 600,000, going unanswered or being dropped. This equates to an average of 1,700 calls per day that were either not attended to or lost connection. The Midrand call centre in Gauteng alone handled just under half of all emergency calls in the country, receiving 4.4 million calls.

While 3.8 million calls were answered by the Gauteng office, 635,000 were left unattended. The Midrand site had recorded more than four million calls annually since 2020-21, with the record being 4.8 million calls in that year, followed by a decrease in subsequent years. The police ministry blamed the slow response times and unanswered calls on insufficient human resources, stating that the current ratio of operators to incoming calls is severely inadequate.

The ministry also urged citizens to only call 10111 in emergencies, as many calls were found to be hoaxes, nuisance complaints, or general inquiries that consume significant resources. To address the issue, police management conducted regular training and implemented disciplinary action for underperforming staff. However, the ministry noted that retrieving necessary statistics to track accountability was limited due to system limitations.