400 CCTV cameras yet to be installed in Kampala

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | More than 400 out of 3,323 Closed Circuit Television-CCTV security cameras planned for Kampala Metropolitan policing area are yet to be installed.

Acting Director for Information Computer Technology- ICT, Felix Baryamwisaki, has revealed that 400 cameras haven’t been installed because of the on-going road constructions in areas like Nakawuka and Lweza.

Baryamwisaki said all the 3,323 cameras could have been installed if it wasn’t the road constructions and some places where the voltage is less than 200. Such low power voltages cannot power a CCTV camera.

Police, according to Baryamwisaki, have since been notifying Umeme to improve on voltage in affected areas but also alerting road contractors on what needs to be done to ensure the installation of CCTV is unhampered.

President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni is expected to commission the national CCTV command centre at Naguru police headquarters. The national CCTV command centre will serve as forensic centre, ICT centre, Archive centre, control and monitor centre for all other district and division centres.

Baryamwisaki said the command centre will be able to monitor traffic flow on all highways, oversee CCTV control rooms in other urban areas such as Masaka, Mbarara, Gulu, Mbale, Arua, Jinja and Lira.

A monitoring officer at Naguru would be in position to know that officers in a division or district control room are absent and would immediately send a communication inquiring why the CCTVs are not attended to.

Police say the Naguru command centre will also address issues of officers absenting themselves without notification from their seniors. For instance, if a District/Division Police Commander –DPC has not been at the station, commanders at Naguru would know by checking footage in evening.

Baryamwisaki said sometime Officers In charge-OCs and DPC would be in Kampala but claim they are at their respective stations. If a commander claims he or she is in the field, police would be asking them to stand near a CCTV camera within 200 metres so that their locations can be seen.

More than 5500 cameras have been planned to be installed on highways, access roads, towns and divisions to enhance security. Since the installation of CCTV cameras in Kampala in August last year, over 2000 traffic incidents have been captured while more than 200 criminals have arrested using cameras.

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