At busy highways and intersections across Kampala, there are
Chinese surveillance cameras.
The government purchased them for more than 100 million euros.
The cameras are equipped with software that recognizes faces and
scans license plates.
Ugandan officials and local journalists have said that some of
them are neither monitoring nor recording crimes.
Members of parliament even called for a review of the cameras after
they failed to capture footage of a police officer's killing.
It’s a claim that Yusuf Sewanyana from Uganda's police force denies.
The allegation of CCTV not working, it's not true.
The system is working and it's really a supportive tool
to fighting crime.
The surveillance cameras have been in use since 2018.
The footages, the evidence which is derived from the CCTV, from
the CCTV system is undisputable and it has reduced drastically on
the case backlog.
We have seen a reduction in the behavior, the people, the way
they behave on the roads.
We have seen a reduction of burglaries and so forth in
the urban setting.
Simply because of surveillance, people are now more responsive.
The cameras are part of Huawei's "Safe City" program, designed by
the Chinese telecoms company to deploy surveillance
technology worldwide.
"Safe City" technology reportedly helped police to monitor the cell
phones of Ugandan opposition candidate, Bobi Wine.
In 2021, Wine lost against Yoweri Museveni, Uganda's president
for 35 years.
This is why lawyer and digital privacy advocate Sempala Allan
Kigozi says it doesn’t matter if the cameras "work".
Their true purpose is to deter political opposition.
They have reduced civil participation.
It is easy now to curtail demonstrations.
It is easier to know and track politicians.
Chinese companies may be supplying the technology, but Uganda’s
government is deploying it.
They are preoccupied to stay in power, so they would
do anything possible.
Huawei’s "Safe City" project is global, with
52 countries participating.
According to Washington, DC-based think tank, CSIS, 71 precent of
these agreements are in countries considered “partly free”
or “not free".
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