Saint Lucia will soon get about 24,000 new street lights with surveillance cameras to assist in the battle against crime.
Senior Minister and Minister for Infrastructure, Ports, Transport, Physical Development and Urban Renewal, Stephenson King, disclosed communities throughout the country will get the lights.
“We are hoping that very soon that it will be done,” the Castries North MP stated.
King spoke during Tuesday’s Town Hall meeting of the ruling Saint Lucia Labour Party (SLP).
He said the Ministry of Economic Development was handling the street lighting project.
“It would mean once we complete the negotiations with LUCELEC and the contractor, we are hoping to install some 24,000 new streetlights throughout the country,” King told Town Hall meeting attendees.
“In addition to the street lights, it comes with the complement of cameras so every street light will also have a camera which will assist us in detecting criminal activity throughout the country,” the Senior Minister said.
He spoke amid a spike in fatal shootings, the latest of which occurred on Friday at Anse Ger, Micoud.
That fatal shooting pushed the Island’s homicide count for 2023 to fifty-seven.
Headline photo: Internet stock image.
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Another Great Red Initiative.
Let’s hope the thugs don’t stone/damage them! Also that they are installed properly.
While this is a good initiative – let’s hope that they are maintained for prosperity, and for solving crime.
The criminals shooting them down one by one. Lawless country
Biting on a breadnut excites me more than reading this article. Experience has taught that the equipment will not be maintained. Also, even with video evidence no one will be apprehended. Consider this another Deglos addition.
Who will watch the cameras? 24,000 ppl?
The authorities had no right to inform the public that the street lights was coming with cameras that giving the criminals and the good 4 nothings a heads up the should just go and instal those lights and let the public figure ot out SO THAT WAS CONSIDERED TOO INFORMATION
These ppl in authority have no understanding for national security of their island….hopeless….why would u give away your security measures to the public…who needs to know about this…where is the security clearance on information….too much foolish political agenda based reporting….the only person gaining from your information is the criminals smh…
@ System …..24000 lights need 24000 ppl to monitor them?
This is the level of stupidity we have in this country? So if you 6 cameras around your house 6 ppl are needed to monitor it?
Another thing is the negativity that surrounds everything.Because it wont be maintained it should not be installed….instead of we hope that maintenance will be enforced…..smfh
As I said earlier this is considered too much information the only ones going to benefit from this information is going to be the criminals by giving them a heads up so the government needs to keep their big ass mouth quiet when it comes to the security of its citizens because its not going to help anybody but the criminals
AA King really had things to say at this Town Hall Meeting. What else. Roads will be fixed next yr, now Street Lights with cameras coming soon. What else did the great King hv to say. Btw am still waiting for King to Do Something. Ill be tuning into this website to read what else he has to say.
Who will monitor the cameras and whose going to repair them when the bad boys shoot them down .
@Vanguard. Where in the sentence is states or insinuates that because it will not be maintained, then it should not be installed? Reading is fundamental. My focus has always been maintenance and safety.
Look around you. The traffic lights, “new” buildings, expensive equipment etc. are all going to crap because of no maintenance. There is precedence. In short, maintenance is a “by the way” occurrence. It is always cheaper to maintain. Don’t you know the eventual outcome of this equipment? Smh
The replies here with regard to the purchase show that sensible Lucians know the score.
Who is the AGENT for these lights and cameras? 24,000 seens like a ridiculous number. If we have 20 major communities in our little island that means 1,200 lights per community. 1,200 lights in Dennery? In Anse la Raye? Something is not right here. We are becoming a communist state- must be one in every bedroom! Lol!
At $300 each that is $7.2 million!
Who is the agent? What is there connection to the Labour Party. I guarantee it is a major party hack.
What is the actual cost of this massive program? We already have lights up throughout the island so are these in addition?
What is the installation cost?
What is LUCELEC’s involvement ? Are they oroviding the lights for free and the installation and upkeep but government pays for the electricity used ? Fine but we want transparancy.
This is a major problem in this country where we know corruption is rampant.
This program needs to be aired in public as to the players, cost, maintenance..
Everyrhing the SLP touch rhat has to do with money and taxpayer funds is done wirh as little information as possible.
The Bannens land, sale of the ports, hospital and now street lights and security lighs on a massive scake.
I want the UWP MPs to ask questions in and out of Parliament.
It is not about whether or not there is chicanery. It is about transparency and the right of citizens to know what this government of subterfuge is doing with taxpayers money.
Billuons of dollars are being spent with no transparency. Everyrhing is behind closed doors, with the whisky and cigars being liberally dispensed. Meanwhile we catching our AXX trying to make ends meet with less and less money in our pockets.
In accordance to international law, it is mandatory that any location at which surveillance services are installed, the public must be notified and surveillance system notification posted.
@Vanguard, I agreed with you, but there are some justification for the negative comments, except for the 24000 ppl, however where are the previous installed cameras? Where are the scan tools at our ports? Where are the dogs? Where are all the vehicles? Where are the mirrors that were placed along our roads? What happened to fine and confined for illegal weapons? Where are the breatherlizer kit? Where are the speeding detector equipment? I can go on n on. All of the above were mentioned by politicans before.
@vanguard may the governments prove us wrong but people are jaded due to experience. The thing about informing everyone could have been done after the cameras were live and getting results. It’s like everything is about good press.
1) announcing will hopefully be a deterrent
2) legally you have to tell people they are in a surveillance area
The deployment of 24,000 cameras in public locations has nothing to do with combatting crime in St. Lucia! Rather, it is a project sponsored by our benevolent uncle Sam (recently, via his agents, Hakeem Jefferies & Kamala Harris) to test AI facial recognition software here. The software will integrate the management of governmentally-installed cameras with privately-installed cameras; to give our “rulers” complete knowledge of the activities of all citizens, if we also have cameras within our private dwellings, or attached to our personal computing devices. If all cameras are equipped with microphones, you will have to ensure all your farts are ‘silent-but-deadly’, if you want to retain some level of privacy for your bodily functions.
Uncle Sam expects that live testing in the US would not be received positively by citizens; sneaky testing would expose the US lies about its “democracy” & its hypocrisy for naming China & Russia as totalitarian states. At the appointed time, when US citizens have been thoroughly brain-washed (Covid & Ukraine propaganda not being sufficiently effective), and the demented Biden selected for a second term in office, the deployment of cameras will be completed nation-wide in the US.
Meanwhile, WELCOME TO THE TOTALITARIAN SURVEILLANCE STATE OF ST. LUCIA! Next project, combatting thought crimes using nano-sensors injected into our bodies via mandatory “vaccines”.
Boy o boy o boy the thing I read it makes you ask why even bother just leave things as they are because you are damn if you do and you are damn if you don’t. The cameras will be very easily visual on the light poles, I have seen this same set up in the states. No the cops are not going to sit around watching every pole there will be central monitoring and data can be retrieved when a crime is committed Fools. You heavy foot drivers your time will come when you have to fork out dollars for your need to speed, those same cameras will work as speed cameras and that’s how the government will pay for these poles and then some.
Dont know if that company is from mainland China…but sometime they contract to do the wstching from overseas….if China then you could have them spying on everybody
It’s also good to note that the UK & China have been leading the world in camera coverage of their territories over the last 25 years, but the crime statistics for them are markedly different:
Despite the blanket coverage of cameras in the UK, violent crime keeps increasing each year. In China, however, the level of violent crime is much lower over the last 25 years. Brits constantly rail against their government’s surveillance policy, while Chinese see mass surveillance as necessary for the civic benefit of all citizens.
Incidentally, Chinese fear of violent crime is greater than British subjects, even though they are less likely to be victims of violent crime than Brits – a mark of the general sociopathy of Brits, perhaps?
I don’t really care who does it or what party it comes under once it’s done properly and the footage is admissible in court. Once fair privacy laws are in place and corrupt officials do not use these tools for personal reasons. Once the footage in stored in a secure manner. It’s proven that putting lights and cameras in certain hotspots and where criminal elements gather, help to deter crime. I would also wish the government implement long range thermal cameras around the perimeter of the island to detect unlawful vessels.
@nudge where do you get all of this nonsense from, violent crime in the uk hit a high in 2002 and has been dropping to a 30 year low. And how can you trust information from China which is known for manipulating all data, look what happen a couple weeks ago when they pulled the youth unemployment release. For someone who claims to be enlightened, all you do is repeat the things you see on the internet without doing any fact checking or analysis.
I see the government taking the initiative to deter crime, so that law abiding citizens can be less fearful. Something must be done or else we all perish. We must give it a chance to determine it’s effectiveness and to make necessary adjustments. “Something must be done, even though the heavens may fall”. The naysayers have their own agenda !
I would like St Lucian journalists to do their jobs and to ask these questions of ministers king, pierre. Also the managenent of LUCELEC.
Who are procuring these lights and security cameras?
Who are the agents or middlemen? If LUCELEC own them are there any agencies involved in the purchase. This is st lucia and expenditures like this almost always involve someone getting a percentage.
Who will own them- LUCELEC or government.
How many?
What is the cost?
Cost of maintainance?
We do not want this to be another quiet deal under the table.
It will only be a good idea if we can maintain “CIA” – confidentiality – Integrity- Availability. If we cannot assure the public of these objectives then do not waste your time. Let us know how you intend to get the date and maintain CIA. It is very difficult to trust a system which would require manual internet. Let us also implement separation of duties. No one person should wholistic know the system. This approach will minimize fraud.
@ohreally (really, someone hijacking Oh Really’s name to cover their deception): I am sorry for the “Stockholm Syndrome” (should that be battered-wife syndrome, instead?) you’ve developed from years of mental abuse by mainstream media outlets, who have lied to you constantly. I am quite sure that what you need is training to develop your own critical thinking skills!
Here is a primer (released fresh, today), complete with a vibrant comments section, that might hasten you from your present demise:
IS THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA A RELIC OF THE PAST?
https://sonar21.com/is-the-mainstream-media-a-relic-of-the-past/
There is a prevailing truth about UK media:
* Newscasts with adverts are naught but propaganda.
* Newscasts without adverts are (oh, really!) BBC propaganda!
@Nudge, I assure you no one is impersonating me. All you doing is repeating someone else talking points, how about you come up with something original and put together by yourself.
@Oh Really: If the “ohreally” post at August 27, 2023 At 10:03 pm is yours, then my full response to it becomes even more relevant to you (as well as my post of August 28, 2023 At 7:19 am)!
China’s violent crime rate drops to lowest in 2 decades
https://www.laprensalatina.com/chinas-violent-crime-rate-drops-to-lowest-in-2-decades/
Violence and rape drive recorded crime to a new high in England and Wales
https://news.sky.com/story/recorded-crime-in-england-and-wales-hits-all-time-high-12731343
However, I fully understand the motivation for your response. You wanted readers to be aggressively nudged from the true reasons for the camera deployment program in St. Lucia: 1. Proxy testing of total surveillance software for the US totalitarian state (who are averse to push-back from their citizens who would put a huge dent in the big lie of US “democracy”); 2. Fooling St. Lucians into believing that the government is taking meaningful measures to counteract violent crime, while they already know that cameras cannot prevent violent crime, or aid in the investigation of violent crime (if the examples of the UK & China are taken into consideration).
Nudge clearly you are a thinker,well read by the comments you post.Those who cannot comprehen what you write can never have your level of thinking.Just keep shining your light while they remain in the dark.