Dr. Stanley Shanapinda, CEO, Telecom Namibia

Namibia's capital city, Windhoek, plans to install CCTV cameras to prevent theft of copper and batteries, as well as vandalism of telecommunications infrastructure.

This is being done through a partnership between Telecom Namibia and the City of Windhoek.

The network operator and municipality will form a task team to prepare for the exercise, which aims to improve Windhoek's safety.

Faniel Maanda, City of Windhoek acting CEO, said the municipality will work with other stakeholders to make the capital a "sustainable and caring city" by 2027.

He was speaking as he hosted a delegation of Telecom Namibia, led by CEO, Dr Stanley Shanapinda.

“We need to co-identify key areas prone to crime and put-up infrastructure to assist with pro-active policing in crime hotspots,” Shanapinda said.

“As such Telecom Namibia in collaboration with law enforcement agencies have to come up with tactics to safeguard the telecommunications infrastructure before the company gets to a point where it can no longer find supplies to replace stolen and vandalised equipment.”

Shanapinda said the company eventually aimed to replace copper with fibre to reduce incidents of theft and vandalism as well as mitigate downtime of services.