.Gauteng Police Commissioner, General Tommy Mthombeni, briefed the community safety portfolio committee today on the police's readiness on the upcoming general elections.

Mthombeni highlighted the provincial police's plans to ensure safe and secure elections on 29 May. "We have decided to come up with what we call an operational plan which we have divided into five categories. It includes crime intelligence, proactive policing, combating policing, public order policing and general policing. We have managed to identify places that may become a problem and we are keeping a close eye on them due to the high number of the people that registered to vote this year," he said.

Mthombeni further revealed that there are 47 warehouses that will be used to safeguard ballot papers. "On the day in question, we will have about 20 helicopters and 20 drones flying across the province the whole day to help curb any attempts to have the elections disrupted," he said. Mthombeni added that the police have also come up with a plan to have officers working three shifts a day on 29 May. "The police will work eight hours before and, on the helicopters and drones flying across Gauteng monitoring voting centres in the province on the day. This will on go until the elections are over." Mthombeni further revealed that districts in Gauteng will have over 4 000 police units ready to monitor the situation. Gauteng alone has over 6,5 million registered voters with 52.7% of those being women.