BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – ANOTHER prong of the Royal St. Christopher and Nevis Police Force’s preventative and investigative strategy in fighting crime is the rolling out of the CCTV (closed-circuit television) project which is scheduled to come on stream in or before March of this year.
Commissioner of Police Ian Queeley recently informed of this development, while presenting at his first Lecture for the year.
“We would also, from a preventative standpoint, see the rollout of the CCTV project. That project will be both preventative and investigative. And so lots of work will be required and that will be a complement to the other strategies that will be employed. We expect that to be in place by March, at least within the first quarter.”
Some eight years ago, a CCTV project was proposed and as time progressed, cameras were mounted in Basseterre and eventually in Nevis. The project went through the testing phase, SKNVibes understands, but was never implemented and there were many questions posed by the public about if and when it would come on stream.
For this more-recent undertaking however, the Taiwanese government made a $5M donation to the Federal government. It forms part of the Cities and Roadways Surveillance System CCTV Project.
Ambassador of the Republic of China, Taiwan His Excellency George Chiou, in handing over the donation said it would provide “effective tools” for the Police to properly perform their functions.
The CoP said the Police Force is hoping that different business houses across the Federation would also assist with this project by installing surveillance equipment in and around their properties.
“What we are hoping also – because we can’t place cameras all over the country, we are hoping to, on a larger scale, engage the business community or they themselves to install their surveillances in and outside of their premises and that we believe, based on the negotiations, can be plugged into the national grid which would be an added tool for us.”
