The Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has announced that government is in the process of deploying 8,000 CCTV cameras across the country to help fight crime.

The move is also part of government’s efforts to digitize the police’s information system.

The Vice President made this known at a business round-table forum organised by Ishmael Yamson and Associates yesterday.

Dr Bawumia said that the government is committed to resourcing the country’s police service to help it effectively fight crime.

“We’ve deployed about 1000 cameras across the country with a central monitoring centre in Accra, Tamale and Kumasi. The three centres will monitor all the 16 regions. So the 1000 cameras are just the first phase. The second phase will be a deployment of 8000 additional cameras. We want to have a situation where the police are helped in their fight against crime with real-time data so that we see what is happening virtually everywhere we can. It really helps,” Dr. Bawumia said.

The Vice President has on various occasions restated the government’s commitment to digitizing the economy by ensuring the use of technology and modern systems.

Dr Bawumia also announced the digitization of all transactions in the public sector by June 2020.

He said a pilot exercise had already been completed in the Tourism Ministry ahead of the implementation.

“So if you want a service, you would have to go to one portal so that you can do everything online…When you do that you are eliminating a lot of middlemen, of course goro boys,” he noted.

By Nana Akua Gyidie