COMPUTER tablet screens glow inside a row of partitioned booths at a new-style Ethiopian police station.
There is no commotion. There is no front desk, no bench of anxiously waiting civilians, no officer calling out names.
It is a pilot project of what is being called a “smart” – or unmanned – police station in the Bole district of the capital, Addis Ababa, is the latest chapter in Ethiopia’s bid to catch up with the digital revolution.
A large monitor on the wall cycles through welcome messages as well as images of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.
But at the moment there are uniformed officers standing by to demonstrate how the system works, which makes it feel more like a tech showroom.
Recently opened, the staff “are here to help people get used to it”, the police’s head of technology expansion department Cdr Demissie Yilma tells the BBC.
Inside a booth, he taps a screen and goes through the steps to make a report.
Demissie selects the type of incident – a crime, a traffic report or a general concern – enters the details and presses a button to submit the comment.
Then, an officer – who is a real person in a remote location rather than a chatbot – pops up on the screen and begins to ask questions and take down information.
“If there is a problem, officers respond immediately and patrol the area mentioned by the reporter,” Demissie says.
In its first week last month, the smart police station (SPS) received just three reports – a lost passport, a financial fraud case and a routine complaint.
But Demissie believes the number of reports will grow as locals become more aware of it.
“The future police service should be near the citizens,” he says.
The use of a computer tablet to communicate with officials may mean less human-to-human contact but the authorities believe that the SPS could increase access to the police in places where there may not be enough personnel to man a fully fledged station.
At the project’s launch on 9 February, the prime minister was quoted in state media as saying that it was aimed at making “law enforcement institutions competent and competitive” and he framed it as part of a wider digital reform drive.