Gov’t 10,000 Surveillance Cameras To Be Completed By December

Minister for National Security, Albert Kan Dapaah, has told Parliament that the second phase of Ghana’s contract with Chinese multi-tech company, Huawei Technologies, to install 10,000 Close Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras to improve security in the country will be completed by December this year.

According to him, the project was supposed to be completed in early 2020 after the contract was signed in 2018. However, disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic constrained government to shift the completion timelines to December 2021.

Albert Kan Dapaah had made the submission in answer to a question filed by the Member of Parliament for Wa West, Peter Lanchene Toobu, who wanted to know the state of the project in which CCTV cameras were to be fixed in all Police Stations across the country.

According to the Minister, the Government of Ghana through the Ministry of Communications and Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd signed a contract in 2012 for the establishment of the first phase of the Integrated National Security Communications Enhancement Project (Alpha Project – Phase1), to install a network of CCTV cameras and cellular technologies to enhance the operational efficiencies of the security and intelligence agencies of the country.

He said phase 1 of the project delivered about 800 CCTV cameras in Accra, Kumasi, Takoradi, some critical border areas like Aflao, Elubo and Paga, other critical national installations and some major towns across the country.

The contract for the implementation of the second phase of the project to install 10,000 more cameras and extend its cellular capabilities to every district across the country was signed in December 2018 and commenced in January 2020. 

“To date, installation works of about 6,500 cameras have been completed, with a little over 4,000 cameras powered and online, mainly in Accra, Kumasi and other regional capitals, and this has aided us to achieve many successes in detecting many infractions and criminal activities, including helping us solve recent violent crimes such as armed robbery and kidnappings,” Mr. Kan-Dapaah indicated.

According to the Minister, Video Surveillance systems have become a critical security tool for monitoring and providing real-time surveillance.

Kan Dapaah pointed out that, countries with enhanced security are those with greater saturation of cameras per citizen for security and surveillance purposes.

Ghana, he said, is currently doing less than one camera for every 1,000 people; whereas “a research carried out in 2020 indicated that the city of London has 73.31 cameras per 1,000 citizens, Beijing has 55.03 cameras per 1,000 citizens and New Delhi has 33.73 cameras per 1,000 people.”