Eastern Cape's Kouga municipality launches ‘911’ drones in first project of its kind in Africa

Stuart Riddle from URSafe explaining how the drones will work and can be sent out from the Kouga Municipality's Incident Command Centre. (Photo: Deon Ferreira)

By Estelle Ellis

24 Mar 2025

The Kouga Local Municipality, based in Jeffreys Bay and Humansdorp in the Eastern Cape, has launched new technology, a first on the African continent to send out first-responder drones to crime scenes and other crisis situations.

In a first on the African continent, the Drone as a First Responder programme was launched at the Kouga Information Command Centre in Humansdorp on Monday.

The drone team will be at full force and up and running from mid-May.

This puts the Kouga municipality, the first to implement the programme in Africa, on par with countries like the United States where drones as first responders were implemented since late last year.

The drones will be sent out to reach crime scenes and other crisis situations first to provide valuable information on a situation to police officers and municipal law enforcement while they are on their way.

Like many municipalities in the Eastern Cape, the Kouga Local Municipality is struggling with gangsterism, abalone poaching, and the theft of electrical cables and vandalism.

Mayor Hattingh Bornman from the Democratic Alliance said they had to triple their budget to fight crime in the municipality over the past year to enable law enforcement to respond quicker. He said that by doing this, they make sure that the economy can grow and a safe space is created for businesses to thrive.

Bornman said the drones as first responders will be a great addition to what has already been set up. The municipality has a state-of-the-art incident command centre and also is using a voice-activated app. The app has in recent months assisted law enforcers to arrest the gunmen who shot a member of the mayoral committee, Jacques Alexander, in March 2024.

The Information Command Centre is based at the municipal disaster management centre at the Humansdorp Fire Department. It monitors feeds from more than 300 municipal and private security cameras day and night, including the beachfront and rural roads.

Centre manager David Phelan said they were working with their neighbours in the Koukamma and Nelson Mandela Bay municipalities and in the Karoo, and could relay information to local agencies when needed.

David Phelan manages the Kouga municipality's Incident Command Centre. (Photo: Deon Ferreira)

Read more: Make way for robots in the sky: How drones are transforming farming in South Africa

Stuart Riddle from UrSafe, the municipality’s partner in the project, said the idea behind the project is that the drone can arrive at a crisis or a crime scene long before first responders do.

He said the drone can gather visuals that will provide essential information to the first responders about the situation on the ground. “Then first responders can know if they need to wait for back up or what dangers there are.”

He said the drone has heat sensors and will, for instance, be able to pick up if suspects are hiding in a bush. It will also be able to detect the bodies of survivors, for instance, at an accident scene cutting down on search and rescue time.

He said their primary objective is to provide a network of drones in the region so that the nearest drone to an incident can be sent out by the Information Command Centre in Humansdorp. He said the drones have live-tracking capabilities, which is a major advantage, and can also be used for routine surveillance for crimes such as cable theft and vandalism.

Riddle said the drones can also fly at night, over wild fires and respond where there are flooding situations.

He said privacy concerns have been addressed and, while the drone is in the air, its cameras will face forward. The cameras will then be directed downwards when it reaches the scene of the crime, accident or disaster.

Read more: Big Brother’s beach watch — drones and CCTV spark privacy concerns in Cape Town

Stuart Riddle from UrSafe explaining how the drones will work and can be sent out from the Kouga municipality's Incident Command Centre. (Photo: Deon Ferreira)

Riddle said another crime-fighting tool, like Shotspotter, software that can detect and triangulate where shots are fired, can be integrated into the drone’s capabilities.

“I believe that this is a better version of 911 for South Africa,” he said.

Deputy minister of Trade, Industry and Competition Andrew Whitfield said the launch was an exciting one, especially as the government has become overwhelmed by crime.

“This fills the space,” he said. He praised the Kouga municipality for always being at the forefront of innovation and looking for solutions. Whitfield underscored the importance of creating a safe environment, especially to grow the business sector in South Africa and create more jobs.

“It is estimated that 10% of GDP [gross domestic product] is lost due to crime.”

In this 2023 publication, the World Bank explained how crime is impacting GDP in South Africa.

He said he hoped this project could contribute to easing the way for an industrial park in the Kouga municipality to create more jobs and serve as a socio-economic intervention. He added that it would be great if South Africa can also start training drone pilots and software engineers. DM

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