Belgian government creates gap of more than EUR 150 million for Public Safety communications
The budget available for the ASTRID TETRA radio-network for public safety communications receives only 11 million until 2019 instead of the calculated 43 million euro annual budget.
Especially now, in times of increased threat level, the government-Michel in Belgium decreases the budget for the ASTRID TETRA network to a paltry 11 million euros until 2019.
In Belgium, just like in The Netherlands (C2000), United Kingdom (AIRWAVE) and Norway (Notnett) all public safety emergency services communicate through the secure TETRA radio-communications network. As with any other radio communications network, there are costs associated with the operations of the network. Where ASTRID 2015 alone has budgeted some 43 million euros, the emergency and security services will only receive a paltry 11 million by the year 2019.
But it could be worse. In 2013 ASTRID received no penny from the government.
Apparently security and secure radio-communications in Belgium is of secondary importance. On almost all fronts, the government is cutting costs. Even at OCAD (organization that analysis threat), the budget is shockingly reduced from 1.13 million euros to 801,000 euros.
Frederick Langhendries (spokesperson at ASTRID) mentioned that the information is correct and that the deficits will be temporarily covered with liquidity reserves in recent years. For example, operations remain assured. '
The ASTRID network consists of 69,000 connected devices with 56,000 subscriptions.
