
The police service and police station across the country have gone rock bottom, St Clair ‘Major’ Leacock. Opposition Parliamentarian and Parliamentary Representative for Central Kingstown has said.
He made the comment during the recent Parliamentary debate on the Bill to authorize government to secure a loan from the Saudi Development Fund (SFD) to assist in financing projects.
According to Finance Minister Camillo Gonsalves, the funds will be spent on the rehabilitation and construction of a number of projects including EC$17.6 million which will be spent on the rehabilitation of national security facilities, primarily police stations.
A total of 20 facilities will be refurbished or built and they include a police station to be constructed in Diamond, and the other facilities to be dealt with include the police station at Chateaubelair, the Central Police Station, Rose Hall Police Station, Georgetown, Calliaqua, Vemont, Old Montrose, the Police Garage at Arnos Vale, Layou Police Station, the Rapid Response Unit (Black Squad) quarters at Port Elizabeth, Bequia, the Biabou Police Station, the Police Stations at Port Elizabeth and Paget Farm, Bequia, the Mesopotamia Police Station, Layou RRU Base, the Owia and Sandy Bay Police Stations, Questelles Police Station and the Canouan Police Station.
Work is also scheduled to be done on the Belle Isle Correctional Facility.
But Leacock during the debate on the Bill asked how many police stations were there in St Vincent and the Grenadines, responding that if there were 40, and that it would mean that half of the police facilities were in bad condition.
“All over the country, we have police stations in rotten stinking conditions and you coming to boast that you strengthening 20 of them?” Leacock said.
“The truth be the matter that much of this money would have been better spent if you told me you were going to establish a maintenance department in the police force of 20, 30 employees – builders, carpenters, masons, plumbers and electricians so that there is a constant maintenance program that our policemen could have a proper night’s rest,” Leacock said.
According to the Parliamentary Representative for Central Kingstown, the evidence from the loan was that the government was trying to bring together and make sense for the fact that it had mismanaged the maintenance, care and duty that you owe to the policemen.
He contended that too many police stations were in terrible condition.
And they were now being fixed using other people’s money, he said, but the facilities ought not to have been in the condition that they were in. “You look at the one in Stubbs, not even the back wall outside could be painted and they gave them mattresses during the COVID time, but our policemen deserve better and it speaks to the fact that they having so much turnover in the police force,” Leacock said.
He added that Police officers were going everywhere else to get work with many passing through to get a US Visa.
“You gotta treat our policemen better, far better than what you are treating them,” Leacock continued.