“Whether they are working or not there are cameras in place,” Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee posited yesterday on being questioned as to the relevance of the CCTV cameras that have been strategically placed in Georgetown with the aim of capturing criminal activity.
The minister stated that there are cameras in place and that along with police patrols and data being gathered from various other divisions such as the community and neighbourhood policing groups, the ministry is working to address the access to information. “You would say in the media even though we have all these things in place they aren’t working so we have to do other things as well,” to provide effective policing, he added.
Rohee said the Home Ministry has an integrated crime information system. However, when Stabroek News enquired as to the relevance of the CCTV cameras if they were not working, the minister’s rejoinder was that they were in place whether working or not. The cameras have been placed in high traffic areas, but despite several crimes being committed in the vicinity of cameras, footage is yet to be utilised by police or be of use in solving any of these crimes.
Previously, Rohee had stated that the police have an obligation to use the cameras and whatever footage was captured. He has never before stated that the cameras may not be operational.
APNU MP and former police commissioner Winston Felix has gone on record as stating that the cameras have been a huge waste of money because they have not amounted to anything. Felix said the planning itself was ill advised and questionable, pointing to cameras, located on Homestretch Avenue, which “serve no purpose; they have not detected any crime there.”
Citing the fatal shooting of Corporal Romain Cleto outside the Bank of Baroda on Avenue of the Republic on April 28, Felix said this was a perfect example of the ill-advised installation of the CCTV cameras. “Look at this young man shot dead along there and no cameras, no nothing and that is a busy area,” Felix said.
“The problem from the beginning is someone thought this was a good idea and then the CCTV cameras were bought. I don’t know anything of how much these cost and the police don’t seem to know… but they were bought and they just put up,” he said.
Furthermore the receiving end of the cameras is not known and all police officers don’t necessarily have access to the footage or a live feed. Therefore, the notion that the cameras, working or otherwise, will help with solving of real-time crimes was not realistic, Felix stated.
“These cameras had to have been tested and the ministry and police [made] aware of how far they can see down the road and how clear the footage is… They should be able to read licences plates, come on the roads are not wide,” he added.
Felix said that for the CCTV cameras to actually be useful they need to work and they need to be tested and the police need access to the feeds. Just having cameras isn’t going to do anything and since they aren’t working it means that they don’t act as a deterrent, he said.
He lamented that much of the details surrounding the acquisition of the CCTV cameras were not public knowledge and that was unfortunate because they were touted as a form of public safety.
