A total of 45 senior Police officers have completed an eight-day senior commanders’ course in the use and monitoring of CCTV cameras at the Police headquarters Naguru.
The Deputy Director in charge of the Human Resource Development SCP Felix Ndyomugyenyi closed the course on behalf of his Director AIGP Godfrey Golooba.
Ndyomugyenyi said the course was timely and befitting for officers who are going to supervise the juniors who will operate the CCTV cameras around the country.
He urged the commanders to use the cameras to curtail crime and reduce it in the country so that investors can come and invest in the country.
“Investors cannot come where there is insecurity, so make maximum use of cameras to fight crime in your area, so that investors can come and invest in Uganda,” he said.
The training was contacted by Blue Global Services from United Kingdom and it was supported by HUAWEI, a Chinese company that was contracted by government to install CCTV cameras around the country.
The Chief Trainer, Les Owen from Blue Global Services for the initiative to have CCTV cameras installed around the country to fight crime.
According to Police, the course’s main objective was focusing on safer cities and included topics like concepts of operations, integrated command and control, critical incident management, communication and management contingency plans among others.
Participants were drawn from the Field Force Unit, Counter Terrorism, Traffic, Flying Squad, 999 response team, Public Relations office, Commander Kampala Metropolitan Police and his deputy, All Regional Police Commanders in KMP, all Regional Traffic Officers in Kampala Metropolitan Area and all Division Police Commanders in KMP.
Museveni to open command centre
The training comes at a time when President Museveni is set to officiate at the function where the new national command centre for CCTV cameras will be opened at Police headquarters in Naguru on Wednesday.
The command centre will be the one where all the CCTV cameras throughout the country are monitored from.
Currently, the command centre is housed at Nateete police station but this was done at a temporary basis to allow construction of a new one.
Speaking during the New Year address early this year, President Museveni insisted that the CCTV cameras will greatly help to fight criminality around the country.
“We have been working systematically to resolve the issue of the artificial eyes in the cities, towns and highways and of improved forensic systems. This new year will see us close those gaps forever,”Museveni said.
A total of 5,552 CCTV cameras are set to be installed in various places around the country with the Kampala Metropolitan districts of Wakiso, Kampala and Mukono taking a lion’s share with 3233 cameras on 1248 sites.
The newly installed CCTV cameras are of two types including the fixed and Pan Tilt Zoom(PTZ) cameras that rotate and views 360 degrees.
The cameras also have a feature of automatic number plate recognition for reading number plates including those for motorcycles.
The CCTV cameras also have a facial recognition feature, night vision, Global Positioning System (GPS) and automatic cleaning system.
Police recently released success stories for the CCTV cameras indicating that crime has greatly reduced after apprehension of criminals with the help of the cameras.
