Staff Writer
Twelve speed cameras, commonly referred to as the “Yellow Pole Camera”, installed by the Namibian Police Force (Nampol) more than two years ago on the country’s highways at a cost of N$4 million are still to be operationalized.
According to insiders although the cameras are functional, Nampol cannot use any of the speed violation information collected as their functionality still needs to be gazetted into law.
The failure to operationalize the technology has been attributed to continued delays by the Ministry of Safety and Security, under whom Nampol falls, to promulgate the law.
The development, however, comes as Nampol in June 2018 had informed the public that the cameras were functional.
Contacted for comment, home affairs, safety and security minister, Frans Kapofi said he was still to be briefed on the matter.
“I am not yet familiar with that issue as I am still to be briefed by people in the ministry,” he said.
Nampol Spokesperson, Deputy-Commissioner, Kauna Shikwambi was unavailable for comment.
The cameras were installed as part of Nampol’s plans to modernize its traffic policing by Community Security Solutions Namibia (CSS) over a two year period which also included the acquisition of mobile traffic cameras.
The acquisition of the cameras is now a subject to a reported fraud case that the police have opened against CSS owner, Amos Shiyuka, on allegation that he inflated the cost of his company’s initial tender for the installation of speed-trap cameras valued at around N$3 million and ended up costing NamPol N$14.2 million.
“I have not spoken to anyone regarding this, but the matter is all over the place. The only calls I have received are from the media saying there is a case registered against me and my company for fraud. Apparently its claiming that we delivered nothing but as you can see we did deliver and it’s all signed for and we have all the supporting documentation,” he said.
Quizzed on why the case had been opened against him and the company years later, he said, “I have no idea why they are coming after me. If there was a process done wrongly within Nampol, then that is their own story to sort out because I don’t set the procedure and rules for Nampol or their procurement systems.”
“This a clear witch-hunt because something is not right. Or don’t they have a filling system with all these documents internally. I have all the documents and the proof is here, everything is here that they want to know.”
He said the non-functioning of the yellow cameras installed by the company, “is out of my hands. It’s not my doing.”
Shiyuka maintained everything from bidding to the completion of the tender was done above board by his company, within the scope of the job and the requirements of Nampol.
“We were awarded an initial tender in April 2014 for traffic management system and our bid was for N$3.76 million and it took six months for us to deploy the technology. After we were finished on 30 June 2015, we received a request from Ralph Ludwig, then Head of Traffic at Nampol saying they want to procure other things. I found those things and gave them a proposal and quotation,” he said.
“We did provide options and they picked what they wanted and for the fixed speed cameras they wanted those with a solar solution to avoid unnecessary electricity costs. Even the quantities I gave them the cost of a unit and they are the ones that came back with the quantities and they wanted 12.”
