CCTV IN THE MALAWI POLICE SERVICE

The Malawi Police Service (MPS) would like to introduce video surveillance technology in its fight against crime. The chosen technology is CCTV and the dream is to install cameras in crime hotspots in the two cities of Blantyre and Lilongwe.

At a recent international trade fair that took place in Blantyre, the Malawi Telecommunications Limited (MTL) exhibited the CCTV as one of their new products on the market. The Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of the MPS saw the exhibition and got interested in the technology. She tasked my immediate boss to arrange for a presentation where MTL would demonstrate to senior police officers how CCTV may be applied in the security sector. My boss, in turn, tasked me to coordinate the meeting. He emailed me all the communications that had taken place between him and MTL.

The presentation was scheduled for Thursday, 4^th July 2013 at MPS Headquarters in Lilongwe. MTL installed cameras at strategic crime hotspots in Blantyre and Lilongwe. On 2^nd July I met MTL engineers and took them to the head of Communications in the MPS so that he could show them the presentation room so that they could finish their preparations for the meeting. Later I learned that the MTL staff had been turned away by the MPS’s head of communications who said that procedure had been flouted by not involving him in this project at an earlier stage. They were advised to go back and put their request to the Inspector General in writing. The Inspector General would then formally instruct him to host the MTL staff and facilitate the hosting of the presentation. This was very frustrating to MTL who had already invested lots of time and resources into this project. I immediately informed my boss about this development who discussed the problem with the head of communications in the MPS and at last it was agreed that the presentation should go ahead.

Retrospectively, I have learned an important lesson from this incident. The MTL staff would not have been turned away had my office established communication with the head of communications in good time. This incident clearly demonstrates that horizontal communication between heads of different sections of an organization is key to the success of their projects. There is little doubt that the head of communications had done this because he felt that his office had not been acknowledged adequately or that he had been excluded from a project that lay squarely in his domain. The next time I am given a project to manage or a task to do, I shall remember to identify and involve all relevant stakeholders at an early stage. I will design a simple check list which will state the name of the project and list all possible stakeholders and their roles in the project. This way I will be sure not to leave out any significant stakeholders as was the case in this incident.