The Kampala Capital City Authority KCCA has purchased body cameras to be used by Law enforcement officers on duty.
According to the authority, the cameras are meant to monitor and address complaints from the public related to aggressive behaviors from the officers.
Over the years, the public has accused the law enforcement officers of manhandling street vendors, corrupt tendencies and illegally confiscating their properties during evictions to enforce the Smart City Campaign.
The Executive Director KCCA, Dorothy Kisaka says that they have procured these cameras to help in monitoring the officers to get a timely response on such allegations.
Kisaka says KCCA has since embarked on training its officers on handling operations and fitness. She adds that the Authority is also working on penalties for officers found operating outside the law and those found guilty officers will either be suspended or expelled.
“This is something that they have already acquired and gone through training with them. We want to get information from the field in time. So that if there is an issue, it can be dealt with immediately. The problem of reporting late is we fail to resolve an issue quickly.” She says
Kisaka however says their operations have so far addressed decongested streets in downtown Kampala by relocating vendors to the markets.
She adds that the Smart City campaign will be rolled out to the other divisions to ensure law and order on the streets.
However, the Kampala City Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago says the body camera system is too sophisticated and ‘allien’.
“The idea was given to us by the ED (Kisaka), we had to interrogate it further and see how it will work out because the system sounds sophisticated and alien and hightech,” he says
He however says that the KCCA council, headed by him, is in the final stages of drafting a law to regulate the operations of KCCA law enforcement officers.
“The training mechanism has also to be provided for in the law. I have a view that we also create a training center for the enforcement as it is with the police and military. We also need to be clear on qualifications and entrench it in the law” he adds