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Police officers on duty in Kingstown on Monday, Jan. 13, 2025.
Police officers on duty in Kingstown on Monday, Jan. 13, 2025.
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Minister of Finance Camillo Gonsalves says the EC$1.85 billion budget that Parliament approved on Friday is about national security.

Budget 2025 increases the recurrent budget for the Ministry of National Security by EC$7 million and raises the capital budget by 74.6%.

EC$16.4 million or 2.3% of the capital budget goes to public order and safety.

Gonsalves told Parliament that the increase does not include millions more to repair police stations.

At the same time, the fiscal package provides for the expansion of the top brass of the constabulary.

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There will be an additional assistant commissioner of police, two superintendents of police, two assistant superintendents of police and four inspectors.

In the middle and lower ranks, there are four more station sergeants, four sergeants and eight corporals.

The finance minister said the changes in the government’s approach to citizen security go well beyond a cursory discussion of the numbers.

Police chief ordered to reform force

He said that while he cannot disclose details about police operations, acting Commissioner of Police Enville Williams has been instructed to reform the police force.

The budget provides the resources to do so, the minister told lawmakers as he wrapped up the one-week debate on the fiscal package.

“The budget is about security,” Gonsalves said, noting that he is not privy to certain things because he is not the minister of national security.

“… but to the extent that I am privy to some of the reforms that the Commissioner of Police has planned in terms of operationalising his troops, his force, deploying his force, using scientific methods, equipping his force with tools and equipment that are superior to that of the criminals on the street, I think I said enough for them to understand that a major reform is underway within the police force,” Gonsalves said.

Camillo Gonsalves
Minister of Finance Camillo Gonsalves presents the 2025 Budget Address on Monday, Jan. 13, 2025.

He said the reform will make the constabulary “more nimble and more able to be dispatched and deployed to respond to criminal activities and potential….

“I can’t come in here and disclose tactical information. First of all, I don’t know it; but to the extent that I know it, I wouldn’t come here and talk it on television for criminals to hear,” he said.

“But if you see suddenly that we are increasing the ranks in the top brass, that we’re putting more money into equipping certain types of equipment, whatever euphemism we use in the budget to explain what it is, you’re going to come and say nothing nah go on in crime prevention?” Gonsalves said, speaking partly in the vernacular.

He said the government was also making social interventions that are in and of themselves, crime-fighting measures.

“This budget is about security, and I ain’t talking about the police stations that we’re fixing and sprucing up and all the rest,” he said.

75% of killings unsolved  

Police in St. Vincent and the Grenadines have said that crime is on the decline overall, even as homicide statistics are trending upward.

SVG saw a record number of homicides in 2022 and 2023, when 42 and 55 people were killed in the country, respectively, followed by 54 in 2024.

The trend continues even as three out of every four homicides in the country over the last decade has gone unsolved.

In the Budget Address, the finance minister said 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,” he said.

Gonsalves told Parliament that Budget 2025 invests in direct crime-fighting measures, in reform of crime-fighting structures, and in implementing community-building and youth-focussed interventions that promise to have social benefits and anti-crime effects.

“Budget 2025 makes it possible to be aggressive and activist in tackling crime and the causes of crime in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, while being respectful of other citizen security mandates.

“There is absolutely no debate that every right-thinking Vincentian is dissatisfied with the levels of criminal activity in the country, particularly the number of homicides,” he said, adding that SVG and five other six countries in the region 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,” Gonsalves said.

He said that the government 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”.

Pauls Lot killing copy
Police at the scene of a killing in Paul’s Avenue on Dec. 26, 2022. About three out of every four homicides in St. Vincent and the Grenadines over the last decade remains unsolved.

‘new crime-fighting units, … improve morale’

Gonsalves said the reforms of the police force strengthen its leadership, create new crime-fighting units, and improve morale.

“In 2025, there will be a record 1,110 police available to fight crime in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. But the expanded and empowered leadership of those police will be better able to deploy those forces effectively for crime fighting and prevention.”

The fiscal package allocated over EC$1 million in specialised equipment and additional vehicles to improve the capacity and operational effectiveness of the police force.

“We will also be working with the Taiwanese for the installation of an additional 160 CCTV cameras across St. Vincent and the Grenadines, at locations selected by the police top brass.”

He said these 160 cameras have arrived in SVG, and installation will begin in the coming weeks.

“An expansion of our state-of-the-art CCTV command centre in Questelles is also underway,” Gonsalves said, adding that CCTV is a proven deterrent and crime-fighting tool, and the installation of the additional cameras will greatly increase the surveillance capability of the police.

“Budget 2025 also invests heavily in the rehabilitation, upgrade and expansion of police stations,” he said, adding that over $8 million is allocated for work on police facilities at Chateaubelair, Old Montrose, Rose Hall, Stubbs, Vermont, and the Coast Guard Headquarters.

The sum will also go towards preparatory work for expansions of the stations at Calliaqua, Layou, Paget Farm, Spring Village, and Union Island.

“Additional resources are allocated with the capital budget of the Ministry of Finance to address Government Buildings — including police stations — that were damaged or made vulnerable by Hurricane Beryl,” Gonsalves said.

He said that this year, the government will open an additional police station in Diamond, close to the Holiday Inn Express and Suites hotel.

“That station will allow for greater manpower to be deployed more quickly in the rapidly-developing arc between the existing Stubbs and Calliaqua police stations,” he said.

“Beyond boots on the ground and tactics and equipment and police stations, Budget 2025 addresses citizen security more holistically. The concept of citizen security embraces more than crime fighting. It also involves protecting human rights, democratic principles and the rule of law,” he said.