JamaicaEye going blind
Chang says several cameras failing amid ongoing maintenance challenges
Published:Friday | December 20, 2024 | 12:06 AMAlbert Ferguson/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang has revealed that the JamaicaEye surveillance network is now in shambles, owing to a shortage of personnel to maintain the system, causing several cameras to fail.
Launched in March 2018 in an effort to improve safety and security across the island, the JamaicaEye is a national public-private closed circuit television (CCTV) surveillance system that incorporates feeds from public cameras and allows registered private citizens to share footage from their cameras with local authorities free of cost.
The system aims to use digital imagery to detect and deter criminal activity as well as help in the arresting and arraignment of offenders.
But speaking as he met with business leaders in New Market, St Elizabeth, on Wednesday, Chang said a shift to digital technology has left the system underfunded and understaffed.
“The reality is that maintenance is a problem. Since we have gone digital with the telecommunications system, nobody in the country has an effective islandwide technology maintenance system,” the national security minister said.
Reflecting on the past, Chang explained that when Cable & Wireless (now FLOW) had technicians across the island, broken wires were repaired quickly. However, the shift from analogue to digital technology has presented difficulties because the country lacks trained technicians to manage the new system.
“There is no national body with a full maintenance programme, [so] there are a significant number of cameras that are down,” he disclosed.
Chang said that based on the critical nature of JamaicaEye to national security, the Government is far advanced in outsourcing the maintenance service to a local company for 1,000 cameras now on the network.
“We are negotiating with a new company, a Jamaican company, which is willing to go in and establish the system, and we should be ready to roll out in this [financial] year,” said Chang. “Bear in mind, it is a major procurement issue. We have to get a company that can do the islandwide maintenance and buy the bucket trucks that can draw the cables as well as the equipment to do the underground maintenance with trained technicians.
“We have to overcome the maintenance problem. We have just about 1,000 cameras. Santa Cruz has a good layout. Mandeville has a fair number. In fact, Santa Cruz has one of the best [systems, equipped with] 75 cameras, but most of them are not working,” noted Chang.
Moses Chybar, head of the Westmoreland Chamber of Commerce and Industry, expressed concern on behalf of the business community, especially with the holiday season approaching.
“We are somewhat disappointed because the JamaicaEye has been touted as something that can assist in crime prevention, and even after a crime is committed, it can also assist in terms of capturing those who may have committed the crime and bringing them to justice,” he told The Gleaner, reacting to the revelation.
“To hear this now, we are somewhat disappointed because we think that a more proactive approach could have been taken. In today’s world, there are many avenues out there through which we can secure [digital] technical support,” he added. “I don’t know what percentage of the cameras, or the system itself, is working now, but we would hope that whatever it is the ministry and Government are doing, they will move swiftly to have the matter rectified.”