Police Regional Command & Control Centres received more than 2.3 million calls in 2013, of which only 53.6% - or about 1.24 million calls, were genuine. The rest were either misdialled or nuisance calls.
Police today appealed to the public to use the 999 hotline service for emergencies only.
Hotline misuse unnecessarily engages control centre operators and delay handling genuine emergencies, endangering lives of people at risk by postponing their access to the service.
People can seek help from police stations which can promptly handle most crime reports and non-emergency requests. A list of police station contact numbers can be found on the police website and the mobile application.
