Children not exposed

Rowley said, “Trinidad and Tobago as a nation has had its revenue stream considerably reduced.” He continued: “It is an undisputed fact that we do not have as much money as we would like to do all the things that we would like in all the areas that require money to do what has to be done in those areas. That is a fact. That is the situation.” He said that they made reductions across the board and this affected health, education and other areas.

“I do not think that by reducing expenditure in the way we have in that particular case you mentioned that we are in fact exposing ourselves to any increase in security (incidents),” he added.

He said that examinations have surprisingly shown “significant waste” in the system, many options taken were not the best and the “frequency of corrupt practice might be expensive”. He explained that they are trying to minimise those instances and that it was possible to have school security based on what had been allocated.

“It might not be what they have been accustomed to but at the end of the day we have to make do with what we have available,” he said. He added that in some instances when money was available it was not being spent in the best way. He said that there is no “malice” in the reductions and if there are exigencies they will respond to it. Rowley stressed that it was wrong to assume that if the allocations are not the same as before it will be “apocalyptic” and Government “will do all that we can to protect our children”. He also said that attitude changes of not just the children but all across the board can help save money.

On the general crime situation, which he described as an “onslaught”, he said that is the “most frustrating” area and it was not for a want of resources “we are in a record breaking and intractable situation with crime”. He pointed out that the area again received the highest budget allocation but he had to admit that it has not been effective. He described the 17 percent homicide detection rate as “unacceptable” and said there were other Caribbean countries where it was 40 per cent and in the UK it is 95 per cent. He stressed that the bottom line was that the results are unsatisfactory and called for the population to have a role in assisting the police and for the police to build public trust.