Ja: Keeping an eye on the ports

On the busy Port of Kingston where security is crucial, particularly in the wake of new international security regulations to dictate procedures and enhance systems worldwide, security is not being left to chance.

Currently, a CCTV system is strategically positioned on the port and the entire parameter of the port and its environs are scanned and recorded, under close monitoring by persons deemed to be of highest integrity. In addition to massive state-of-the-art x-ray machines and reliable, well-trained personnel as well as other means of defense, the security watch on the port has been intensified with almost full coverage CCTV on the Kingston Container Terminal and Kingston Wharves Limited (KWL).

"The fact is our security equipment and staff, though reliable, cannot only provide our line of defense. We have to ensure that our efforts are wide and far. What the camera might pick up, a security officer could miss," points out Captain John Ulett, the Managing Director of Security Administrators Limited (SAL), the main provider of security on the port.

"The thing is, these days security is paramount and our US trading partners need to be assured that we are serious about the whole business of security," he remarks, adding, "The cameras will provide the leverage that we need in terms of monitoring, which is key in any measure of security".