The government announced on Friday that the death toll in KwaZulu-Natal has been revised down from 258 to 251 as some deaths were found not to be related to the #FreeJacobZuma unrest.
As a result, acting Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said the death toll in last week's protests and resultant looting in KZN and Gauteng had been revised from 337 to 330. She said the police investigations were continuing.
“The SAPS has not revised the number of deaths in Gauteng,” Ntshavheni said.
In Gauteng, 42 murders were being investigated by the police and 37 inquest dockets had been opened.
The inquest dockets in Gauteng include 27 in Ekurhuleni, 11 in Johannesburg and four in Sedibeng.
The total number of unrest-related deaths in Gauteng remained at 79 and none were reported in Tshwane and the West Rand.
In KZN, 110 of the deaths were reported in eThekwini and 20 in uMgungundlovu.
The police were investigating 163 murders and a case of culpable homicide case after a person was run over by a vehicle.
An additional five people were arrested, bringing the total to 20 in the province.
Ntshavheni also announced that the security briefings would now be held once a week to allow police to focus on the work at hand and that there were no new updates regarding alleged instigators.
She also provided an update on the disruption of some of state-owned rail, logistics, port and pipeline company Transnet’s information technology (IT) applications this week.
“Transnet (is) still regarded as an unrelated event to the unrest,” Ntshavheni said.
She promised that Transnet Freight Rail would restore its operations late yesterday.
On Thursday, Transnet announced that it was experiencing disruption in some of its IT applications and that the source of the problem was being identified.
The entity announced that its container terminals were affected by the disruption but assured customers that work was under way to reduce the downtime to ensure that the impacted systems are up and running as soon as possible.
Ntshavheni also said the government was not considering establishing a commission of inquiry into the unrest for now as the matter was being handled by the police.
She said there were no investigations into possible killing of the looters by the police.
Political Bureau