FDH Bank supports K3m towards Blantyre Police’s CCTV system in the commercial city’s CBD

Apr 20, 2023

After being encouraged by Blantyre Police Station's efforts to boost security and fight crime through enhanced technological security systems, FDH Bank Plc has supported the initiative with K3 million towards its investment to install close circuit television (CCTV) security monitoring system in the commercial city's Central Business District (CBD).

At the cheque presentation on Tuesday at FDH Bank head office in Blantyre CBD, Managing Director, Noel Mkulichi said: "As a leading financial institution and digital bank, we support and promote the adoption and use of technology in various sectors of the economy.

"FDH applauds Malawi Police Service and the government for this initiative and commits to work in partnership in various ways that promote security and create a conducive operating environment for our customers, the business community and the general public at large.

"We recently supported Limbe Police Station with cameras and monitors to boost their security monitoring system that side and today we are supporting Blantyre Police to support their efforts to install security cameras in Blantyre Central Business District that will assist them to monitor activities from the control room at the station.

"FDH Group is a fully homegrown entity and truly believes in supporting Malawi at large and initiatives that grow the economy and advance the country. Through our sustainability program, FDH Cares — which has four main pillars; Our Community, Our People, Our Economy and Our Environment — we are today giving back to our community by partnering with the police to enhance security.

He applauded Blantyre Police Station's Officer-in-Charge, Deputy Commissioner of Police Obrey Nyirenda for initiating the advanced technology security system and for taking the bold step to approach FDH Bank for investment support.

"You and your senior officers have demonstrated that the world is changing and technology is the best solution towards fighting and reducing crime for the communities we thrive in," he said.

In his vote of thanks, the Deputy Commissioner of Malawi Police said he was transferred to take charge of Blantyre Station from National Headquarters in Lilongwe in March last year and having been appraised of the security situation, he set a vision of bringing sanity in close liaison with his fellow senior officers.

"We all agreed that we need local solutions to solve the local problems we were facing in as far as security is concerned," he said. "We thus started engaging with various stakeholders on the ground to know what their security needs are and how they want them to be solved.

"We organised solidarity walk along Blantyre City streets together with the various stakeholders to show that together, we can find local solutions to our problems."

Nyirenda added that the pro-active approach they took was positively embraced by all business stakeholders after the Station's enhanced visibility of patrols and peak-hour traffic congestion control.

"We thus applaud FDH Group for the partnership towards our enhance technological security system which culminated after first engaging with the stakeholders," he said, adding that currently they are also visible through their Rapid Response vehicles and they have also signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with private security companies to offer their services for rapid response.

"We are focused to protect the economic activities of the business community and the public at large so that they should operate 24/7 without any worry of being attacked by criminals."

For Limbe, which already rolled out its security surveillance system, FDH Bank joined other stakeholders by investing into the project with 5 high definition CCTV zoom cameras and 3 monitor screens.

At the handover of the equipment in March, Officer-in-Charge, Deputy Commissioner of Malawi Police Service, Gladson Chipumphula disclosed their ambitions for their digital security surveillance project shall be enhanced with drones as well as fingerprint calibration machines, which shall be connected to National Registration Bureau (NRB).

He announced that the drones — which shall also be connected into the system together with the fingerprints calibration machines — shall complement areas where there are no CCTV cameras.

In connecting the surveillance system with the NRB system, the cameras and drones shall detect presence of a wanted suspect — if within the vicinity of Limbe Town — whose fingerprints were recorded at a crime scene.

The camera or drone that shall detect the presence of the suspect shall pinpoint where they are and the officers in the surveillance room shall immediately alert those on foot or vehicle patrols through walkie-talkies or cellphones.

Through all this, Chipumphula said would enable the town's businesses to thrive such that shops can afford to stay open even during the night as opposed of closing at 5pm as is the case.

He had said: "The business here can maximize on their profits by extending closing times to as far as 9pm or beyond to allow people to shop at ease since they will be assured of tight security."

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