CCTV Network Expands Beyond Crime Detection as Government Plans Wider Public-Safety Use
Information Minister Melford Nicholas says the national CCTV network will no longer be limited to crime detection, as the government moves to broaden the system’s role to include environmental monitoring, anti-litter enforcement and oversight of coastal areas.
Speaking during the Budget Debate, Nicholas said ministries have requested access to the platform because its value “doesn’t stop at crime,” and its functions now extend across several public agencies.
As part of the upgrade, Nicholas announced plans to install 200 additional cameras nationwide, saying the Cabinet has already approved the next phase of expansion.
The new installations, he said, will widen coverage and strengthen the system’s usefulness to multiple sectors. He noted that officers in the Criminal Investigations Department have reported that existing cameras have provided “good assistance… to detect and to enter the crime and help with the prosecution of these crimes.”
Nicholas said the Minister of Health has asked that cameras be deployed along major highways to help enforce anti-littering laws, especially in areas where dumping continues to challenge environmental management.
The Development Control Authority, he added, intends to use CCTV to monitor beaches and coastal spaces where unregulated activity has been reported.
He also referenced community-driven systems such as the private CCTV network in Pigeon Point, installed after the killing of a tourist. While such networks have helped residents monitor their surroundings, Nicholas said they raise regulatory questions.
He told Parliament he intends to seek new rules requiring private CCTV owners to provide footage to law enforcement when criminal incidents occur.
The minister linked the surveillance expansion to the government’s broader upgrade of emergency and communications systems. He outlined improvements to the E911 platform, including a new Motorola system and the distribution of hundreds of radios to the police, Defence Force, ONDCP, beach lifeguards and APUA teams. Nicholas said the new radio network now provides communication coverage across Antigua, Barbuda and the marine corridor between the two islands.
He said both the CCTV expansion and the upgraded emergency network form an integrated infrastructure aimed at improving response times, strengthening enforcement and supporting a coordinated, technology-driven approach to public safety and environmental management.
Advertise with the mоѕt vіѕіtеd nеwѕ ѕіtе іn Antigua!
We offer fully customizable and flexible digital marketing packages.
Contact us at [email protected]
Don’t the police fight crimes and cameras take pictures???
Look how this out of kilter Minister Melford Nicholas is promoting this initiative of the 200 cameras like it will be the be all and end all solution to crime prevention.
Police on the beat is more expensive, but a better deterrent than a few cameras dotted around the country.
ANR?
Could you not find a nicer picture of melford?
Eh?
Really!
He looks exactly like …
Was that deliberate? Hmmm!🤔
My goodness, what a handsome dude. Only a mother could love
Anr,
Where is my complete sentence concerning Melford?
Stop censoring my comments.
Looks like planet of the apes!
Censor that!🤔
@ Sandra Clarke
What do you expect ANR to do, they are not magicians. They cannot turn water into wine and remember beauty is in the eye of the beholder
And people want to say Brigo the Trinidadian calypsonion ugly
If only the government had not taken whatever junks of solar streetlight, over manufacturing that china has to dump on third world countries that are acquired through non technical person like politicians, and instead double down on a technical forum on what is beneficial to the country instead.
1. If we are getting the lamp with the steel pole support, the government should have been given the technical advise of getting the helix anchors to mount these street lights without concrete expenses, the APUA digger derrick truck will just screw these helix anchors into the ground and the light is mounted instantly and can be unscrewed and remounted elsewhere.
2. Do not allow the engineering team to become so institutionalize that their engineering ability is not employed in the mounting of these lamps as it pertain to the battery mounting heights, the height it comes at is for the develop world that never sleep, we have to carry the batteries to the top of the pole to prevent theft of the batteries, unless these solar lights are the all in one compact solar LED streetlights.
3. A stringent maintenance program will have to be
put in place to remove these streetlights when there is a storm, the solar panels can’t take high winds. Or else all would be loss and we are back to square one.
5 . The better choice would have been an all in one solar compact streetlight with camera combination and sim card equipped for modern security purposes that can help the government solve crimes in it’s genesis.
The previous lighting done by the UPP administration had the same failure of technical inputs. They had miles of underground power lines buried for miles around the island in low voltage cables when it should have been high voltage cable that would have given us a resilient system for storm or hurricane, most of the lines would have been underground, now the ALP is still making these mistakes by using political personnel to address these critical areas of infrastructure. The streetlights should have been chosen from a very technical standpoint, and the HELIX anchors as I say is needed to avoid the concrete base to mount the steel pole for the streetlights.
Comments are closed.