The Kouga Local Municipality in the Eastern Cape has expanded its drone security programme, MyBroadband reported. Drones will soon work as first security responders in Jeffreys Bay, St Francis Bay and Humansdorp.
The municipality expanded the programme in October 2026 with security technology company UrSafe Public Safety. Kouga said the drones would now also cover school routes, beaches and municipal infrastructure.
“By expanding this programme, we are strengthening our ability to respond to emergencies, support our law enforcement officers and provide additional protection to vulnerable residents,” said Daniel Benson, the MMC for Safety and Security.
Kouga said the expansion would also bring free panic button services. These are for women and survivors of gender-based violence in the municipality.
“The free panic button is particularly important in our efforts to address gender-based violence. In an emergency, every second matters,” Benson said.
Benson said the initiative showed the municipality’s commitment to putting public safety first. According to MyBroadband, the expansion was meant to improve security in the municipality and its towns. It was also meant to support law enforcement.
Kouga first launched its programme to use drones as first responders in March 2025. UrSafe Public Safety said that rollout was the first government-led drone response programme on the African continent.
The company began operating drones from its Incident Command Centre in Humansdorp. It also runs more than 300 municipal and private security cameras from the same centre.
Kouga is in the Sarah Baartman District, about 80 km from Gqeberha. It was formed in December 2000, when the councils of Humansdorp, Jeffreys Bay, Hankey, Oyster Bay, Patensie and St Francis Bay merged.
Jeffreys Bay is the seat of the municipality. Surfers around the world know the town for the right-hand break at Supertubes Beach.
The town is named after Joseph Avent Jeffery, a businessman who built a wood-and-iron warehouse there in 1849. It stayed a small fishing town for most of its history, and it became a municipality in 1968.
Private security companies in South Africa are also turning to drones to help with law enforcement. Fidelity, the country’s largest private security firm, announced that it was launching its own drone wing, called Fidelity Drone Solutions.
Fidelity can deploy 80 drones from its vehicles. The drones can monitor incidents and send operational data in real time to response teams on the ground.
Source: this article is based on reporting by MyBroadband. Image: MyBroadband. Written with the help of AI and published by the Tzaneen Voice Technology desk. See our Editorial Standards.
Werner Jacobs covers technology for Tzaneen Voice. Werner reports on mobile networks, data prices, internet access, smartphones, apps, AI, cybersecurity and South African tech companies. Each story explains what a new product, price change or policy means for ordinary users in South Africa.