Senator Sunity Maharaj: No $$ in budget for border patrol

INDEPENDENT senator Sunity Maharaj took the Government to task on October 21, saying there was nothing in the budget to address border control, which she said should be its priority if it wants to tackle crime.

“What we are is an island. Given the crimes that we have and the inflow of guns, human trafficking, where we need to deploy our services most is on the coast and the Coast Guard is the smallest unit of our protective and defence apparatus.”

Maharaj was contributing to the budget debate in the Senate on October 21.

Maharaj said that the attitude toward border patrol was inherited from colonial styles of governance, which always had a frigate or another large vessel patrolling the oceans of the region but times have changed.

“That is a transformation where we have to look at what are our needs for security and the first thing we have to secure our borders. We can deploy our financial and human resources, but I don’t see anything here in the budget.”

She also pointed out that the Coast Guard is in dire straits with a vessel shortage.

On the wider issue of crime, she said crimes of opportunity are on the rise and it is striking fear into the hearts of citizens.

“We have opportunistic and random crime. I am of the view that we have crossed a threshold in that type of crime where a person might not even be planning to commit a crime but they just see you walking down the road with a handbag and say to themselves ‘What she doing with a handbag walking down the road? Take it.’

“It is becoming the thing to do, just for a few dollars.”

Maharaj also made a grim prediction that murders will cross 630 this year if it continues at its current rate, which is about 1.7 murders per day.

“With murders at the current rate, it will be a surprise if we did not establish a new record this year, probably between 630-650 murders.

“I hope not, but at a rate of 1.7 murders per day, that is the current rate, that is where we are heading.”

“To this, the minister has several measures – more cars for the police, more expenditure in communities, but we have seen those and clearly, if crime is (still) on the increase, then those measures are not working.

“The question is what is under this that is capable of resolving (crime) at a fundamental level to get change and I see nothing of that in the budget. What I see is the same repetition of the same failed measures.”

The Government proposed a $6.113 billion allocation for national security in the budget, which was read on September 30.