Over $6b in budget for crime-fighting

THE theme of crime-fighting takes the biggest chunk of budget 2024 – over $6 billion in all – according to figures in the Estimates of Expenditure posted on the Ministry of Finance website on Monday just after Finance Minister Colm Imbert read the budget speech.

This sum comprised the allocations to the Ministry of National Security and police service (TTPS).

The ministry was allotted $3.626 billion, up by $231 million from the past year's final allocation of $3.395 billion, which itself was up by $231 million from an initial estimated allocation of $3.074 billion.

The police service has been allocated $2.816 billion, an increase of $414 million from the past year's revised estimate of $2.402 billion, which itself was up from the 2023 initial estimate of $2.370 billion. The ministry and police allocations total $6.442 billion.

Health ($6.020 billion) and education ($5.794 billion) got the next biggest allocations. The health allocation rose by $254 million from the past year's final allocation of $5.505 billion, and the education allocation rose by $744 million from last year's final allocation $5.019 billion.

The Judiciary and Tobago House of Assembly each got an extra $104 million in this year's budget, to $663 million and $2.298 billion respectively.

The ministry with the biggest decrease in funding was the Ministry of Energy, which will lose $1.261 billion. It will get $801 million, down from an actually awarded sum of $2.062 billion in 2023, compared to an initial allocation of $1.493 billion.

In a similar vein, the Ministry of Public Utilities was initially allocated $2.450 billion last year, but got almost half a billion extra in its revised estimate of $2.941 billion, with a $236 million reduction in this coming year's allocation to end up as $2.705 billion.

Heads that got an increased allocation between their initial and revised estimates last year include the President, whose allocation rose from $19 million to $27 million (up by $8 million), the Office of Prime Minister, whose allocation rose from $483 million to $589 million (up by $106 million), and the Office of the Attorney General, whose allocation rose $370 million to $625 million (up by $255 million).