Internal security budget for 2012 to focus on fatalities caused by accidents and reduction of organised crime

On 22 September, the Government approved and decided to send to the Riigikogu the draft state budget for 2012, in which the total volume of the internal security area is nearly 294 million EUR. In the coming year, the Ministry of the Interior will place even more emphasis on the prevention of organised crime, focussing on tracking and seizing criminal income. Another priority is preventative work in the rescue area with the aim of reducing the number of fatalities caused by accidents.

The budgetary base of the internal security area will be increased by 8.64%, which also includes the expenses of large-scale activities planned for the coming year, like for instance the expenses of issuing the large number of personal identity documents forecast to expire. More than half a million personal identity documents and passport will expire in 2012 and the documents have to be replaced.

In 2012, the Ministry of the Interior is going to place more emphasis on reducing the number of fatalities caused by accidents, particularly fatalities caused by drowning and fires. In order to achieve the established objective, the volume of preventative work in the rescue area will be increased by 62% compared to this year. The draft budget allocates more than 600,000 EUR for preventative work.

“Analyses show that preventative communication and education activities help to reduce the number of fatalities caused by fires by an estimated 15% and fatalities caused by drowning by an estimated 30%,” said the Minister of the Interior Ken-Marti Vaher. “In total, we wish to save about 40 human lives a year with those activities. It is important to focus more on educating and including the public. Community members themselves play a very important role in carrying out preventative work, because people who are familiar with local life and care about their neighbours and close ones are always well motivated to perform preventative work and will put their heart into such work,” Vaher added.

In order to ensure safety in rescue works, 1.48 million EUR will be added for the renewal and maintenance of the personal protection equipment of rescue workers and explosives clearance specialists. “We replaced more than 1,000 breathing devices, without which rescue operations in smoky environments cannot be performed. There are about 7,000 fires a year in Estonia and in 4,000 cases rescue workers have to enter the smoke,” said Minister Vaher. In addition to the breathing kits, a large part of the chemical protection suits and gas masks of rescue workers and explosives clearance specialists will be replaced, in order to ensure the safety of the crews responding to calls related to hazardous substances.

One of the priorities of the Ministry of the Interior in 2012 is the prevention of organised crime. For that purpose, the Criminal Income Tracking and Confiscation Unit is currently being developed. “In September, we created a central unit, which will detect income received from drug-related crimes, corruption and other serious criminal activity. The unit must act as a centre of competence and allow the detection of criminal income in the crimes of all the investigative agencies. Crime must be made as low-paid as possible, which will also prevent the use of criminal income for new crimes,” said Ken-Marti Vaher.

In the coming year, the budget will also include the expenses related to the creation of the IT Agency in the amount of 359,000 EUR. As the future hosting country for the IT Agency, Estonia has to ensure the existence of temporary premises and take care of the preparations for the construction or renovation of new premises.