KZN does not have highest murder rate: Commission

Representatives of Statistics South Africa have told the Moerane Commission investigating political violence in KwaZulu-Natal that the province does not have the highest murder rate in the country.

Provincial chief director of Statistics South Africa Helen North tabled figures that showed KZN in third place after the Eastern and Western Cape in terms of the number of murders.

She says it is interesting to look at the murder rate per province.

North says, “You take the total murders per province and dividing it by the number of people living there so that we get an idea per 100 000 people, what is the rate of murder and interestingly you see the darker provinces, at the bottom Western Cape and Eastern Cape have extreme high murder rate.

“Eastern Cape is the highest at 55 and Western Cape is at 51. KwaZulu-Natal is just above national average of 34, we are sitting at 36.6,” adds North.