I want CCTV cameras at the police counters – Museveni
President Museveni plants a tree at the National CCTV command monitoring centre at the Police headquarters in Naguru on November 28. PHOTO BY DAVID LUBOWA
What you need to know:
- With the new CCTV camera technology, defaulters’ vehicles licence plates will be entered in the system and they will be tracked automatically and officers on the road will be informed to carry out arrests.
President Musveveni has said CCTV cameras should be installed at the police station counters to enable monitoring of the performance of police officers.
While commissioning the National CCTV Camera Command Centre at Police Headquarters at Naguru on Thursday, President Museveni said the CCTV cameras will deal with both crime in the community and incompetence within the police force.
“I want to see what they [police officers] are doing. I don’t want to monitor only the criminals, but also my own group. How they do their work,” President Museveni said.
Police constructed a three-storeyed structure and also installed monitoring gadgets.
The commission was the end of the first phase of the installation of CCTV cameras in Kampala Metropolitan Policing Area.
The installation of CCTV cameras in Kampala City started in July this year after the killing of Arua legislator Ibrahim Abiriga by armed men on motorcycles in Kawanda, Wakiso District.
The new structure that houses the National CCTV command monitoring centre at the police headquarters in Naguru. PHOTO BY DAVID LUBOWA
Government will spend more than Shs500bn on the CCTV camera project.
President Museveni said the technology will not register success in curbing crime unless the officers are dedicated and patriotic.
“What is going to remain are two words - dedication and patriotism. …you can have technology but if you don’t have dedication and patriotism, you will not achieve anything,” he said.
He urged officers to show dedication and patriotism while using the new equipment to be able to achieve their goal of fighting crime.
There is also a plan to use the CCTV cameras to track defaulters of Traffic Express Penalty Scheme tickets.
Traffic Police have been finding it hard to track EPS ticket defaulters. In 2017, police imposed traffic fines worth Shs17.7bn fines but only Shs2.2bn was paid.
With the new CCTV camera technology, defaulters’ vehicles licence plates will be entered in the system and they will be tracked automatically and officers on the road will be informed to carry out arrests.
