Geisha Kow­lessar

Out of the $4.7 bil­lion which has been al­lo­cat­ed to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry, To­ba­go will re­ceive $12 mil­lion to beef-up its crime-fight­ing ini­tia­tives. Ac­cord­ing to the Pub­lic Sec­tor In­vest­ment Pro­gramme 2011 – To­ba­go, is­sued by the Fi­nance Min­istry, a de­tailed ac­count of how monies were ex­pect­ed to be spent was list­ed.

On Wednes­day, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an de­liv­ered the first bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion un­der the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment. The doc­u­ment said the mon­ey al­lo­cat­ed to To­ba­go's law en­force­ment arms would be used to con­tin­ue the im­ple­men­ta­tion of its de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme.

That would be in keep­ing with its re­spon­si­bil­i­ties to main­tain law and or­der, pub­lic safe­ty and de­fence and con­trol the flow of peo­ple in and out of the coun­try, it added.

Among the oth­er ini­tia­tives are:

�2 Con­struc­tion of sin­gle-storey struc­ture at Reg­i­ment Camp in Sig­nal Hill. The build­ing will house a can­teen, recre­ation­al fa­cil­i­ties, wash­room and change room;

�2 a new fire sta­tion al­so is ex­pect­ed to be con­struct­ed in Low­lands, To­ba­go;

�2 the Fire Ser­vices would con­tin­ue its pro­gramme of im­prove­ment works to fire sta­tions at Rox­bor­ough, Scar­bor­ough and Crown Point;

�2 a ve­hi­cle would be bought for To­ba­go's Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion at a cost of $.3 mil­lion; and,

�2 re­fur­bish­ment works are ex­pect­ed to be­gin on the ad­min­is­tra­tion build­ing of the Coast Guard's Scar­bor­ough base.

The Min­istry of To­ba­go De­vel­op­ment re­ceived an al­lo­ca­tion of $.5 mil­lion, some of which would be used to ini­ti­ate the To­ba­go Con­sti­tu­tion­al Re­form Process through a re­view of the THA Act of 1996 and oth­er per­ti­nent leg­is­la­tion, the doc­u­ment said. It added that the min­istry al­so has been al­lo­cat­ed $.7 mil­lion for in­sti­tu­tion­al strength­en­ing and staff-train­ing de­vel­op­ment. A com­put­er­i­sa­tion pro­gramme al­so is ex­pect­ed to be­gin with the an al­lo­ca­tion of $.5 mil­lion.

The sum of $37.5 mil­lion al­so was al­lo­cat­ed to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly to con­struct and re­fur­bish To­ba­go's pub­lic build­ings, in­clud­ing:

�2 Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of the To­ba­go Hall of Jus­tice with an al­lo­ca­tion of $1.7 mil­lion, in­clud­ing paint­ing, roof works, elec­tri­cal up­grade and erec­tion of a perime­tre fence;

�2 pro­vi­sion of ac­com­mo­da­tion for the To­ba­go of­fice of the In­dus­tri­al Court at an es­ti­mat­ed cost of $.5 mil­lion;

�2 con­struc­tion of hous­ing for mag­is­trates and judges at an es­ti­mat­ed cost of $2 mil­lion; and,

�2 restora­tion works of To­ba­go's old ad­min­is­tra­tion build­ing.