TimesLIVE reports that the City of Cape Town is training 1,000 potential new metro police officers as part of an 18-month full-time learnership which includes extensive physical training, training on legislation, theory and practical experience.

The initiative called “Project 1,000” hopes to build on the Law Enforcement Advancement Programme (Leap) which has already deployed 1,300 new officers on the ground in crime hotspots in the city. That programme began in December 2023 after an extensive recruitment process and the City has allocated R35m to the project this year. Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said: “We aim to keep growing our policing resources over time to help SAPS fight crime. Our investments are showing promising results, particularly in helping SAPS combat gang, gun and drug crime. City policing operations confiscated 447 illegal firearms in the past two financial years. Firearm-related arrests went up 35% in 2022/2023, with law enforcement also doubling annual drug arrests from 4,000 to 8,000 in the same period.”

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Anthony Molyneaux at TimesLIVE

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