- BUDGET 2025- HEAVY ON TACKLING CRIME
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines’ (SVG) 2025 Budget has been described as one that is aggressive in tackling crime and the causes of crime in the country. “Law-abiding citizens are entitled to feel secure and protected in their daily lives. The safety and security of those law-abiding citizens is a prerequisite for sustainable development, and an imperative for Government action,” Minister of Finance Camillo Gonsalves said while delivering the Budget speech in parliament on Monday January 13th, 2025.
The finance minister said the Budget invests in direct crime fighting measures, reform of our crime-fighting structures, and in implementing community-building and youth-focussed interventions that promise to have social benefits and anti-crime effects.
Budget 2025 increases the recurrent budget for the Ministry of National Security by $7 million and raises the capital budget by 74.6 percent. This increase does not include millions more to be spent on the repair of Hurricane-damaged police stations.
“Budget 2025 makes it possible to be aggressive and activist in tackling crime and the causes of crime in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, while being respectful of other citizen security mandates,” Gonsalves told parliament last Monday.
He admitted, during his address, that there is no debate that every right-thinking Vincentian is dissatisfied with the levels of criminal activity in the country, particularly the number of homicides as SVG is one of six countries in the region that flirted with record or near-record homicide levels in 2024.
“At the same time, other countries in the region experienced significant declines in murder rates. The reasons for these variances between and among countries cannot simply be accepted as random, episodic or influenced by external factors…..We will continue to analyse the respective trends, at home and regionally, to distil best practices that will be most beneficial to our crime prevention strategies,” said Gonsalves.
In relation to some of the initiatives, Gonsalves said Commissioner of Police (COP) Enville Williams has been asked to spearhead a reform of the Police Force.
“While the operational details of his reforms will not be publicly detailed in this forum, they are reflected in Budget 2025 with the creation of 25 additional positions, at each of the six ranks from Corporal to Assistant Commissioner of Police…..These reforms strengthen the leadership of the Police Force, create new crime-fighting units, and improve morale,” the finance minister stressed.
He said that in 2025, there will be a record 1110 police available to fight crime while Budget 2025 includes over $1 million in specialised equipment and additional vehicles to improve the capacity and operational effectiveness of the Police Force. He said also that government will be working with the Taiwanese for the installation of an additional 160 CCTV cameras across the country at locations selected by the Police top brass.
“Those 160 cameras have arrived in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and installation will begin in the coming weeks. An expansion of our state-of-the-art CCTV command centre in Questelles is also underway.
CCTV is a proven deterrent and crime-fighting tool, and the installation of these additional cameras will greatly increase the surveillance capability of the Police,” the minister noted.
It was also mentioned that over $8 million is allocated for work on police facilities at Chateaubelair, Old Montrose, Rose Hall, Stubbs, Vermont, and the Coast Guard Headquarters, along with preparatory work for expansions of the stations at Calliaqua, Layou, Paget Farm, Spring Village, and Union Island.
