Sanctus – Vice Chancellor and Secretary for Homeland Security Nicola Allman has been accused of “dishonesty” by her shadow counterpart in the Sanctarian Conservative Party after her spokesperson today confirmed that the additional £5 billion pounds she had said she secured in this year’s budget for fleet upgrades would no longer be allocated. The money, which was supposed to refresh the Sanctarian Navy’s aging offshore patrol fleet, will now be reapportioned to other government departments to pay for infrastructure and other public service improvements.
SCP Homeland Security Spokesperson Victoria Hargreaves (HV-09) claimed the u-turn was “yet another example of this government’s, and Allman in particular, dishonesty and chicanery over their commitment to the nation’s security”. Speaking on STV-1’s Today in Politics programme, Hargreaves pointed out that Allman “made a big song and dance over securing extra funding for our sailors. Now she says ‘oops, my bad, money needed elsewhere, sorry’. It’s just not good enough. This DLP government likes to say they’re strong on defence, but the reality is they’d rather funnel money towards never-ending infrastructure projects, whatever they are, then to our brave servicefolk defending our maritime borders”.
This is the second time that the Sanctarian Defence Forces budget under Allman has had their fleet upgrades budget pulled at the last minute. Previously promised under the Ringrose administration in 2023, at that time the money instead went to pay for subsidised public transport, and to cover shortfalls in civil servant pay raises. At the time, Allman claimed that the funding reallocation out of her department was necessary to prevent a federal civil service strike, which she suggested at the time could have brought “the country to a standstill”. This time, however, Allman has not yet commented publicly, with her spokesperson instead saying that “it was the decision of the cabinet that the monies previously allocated to this initiative should be invested elsewhere”. The spokesperson added, however, that “on re-assessment of the situation, it is now accepted that the fleet can continue to operate at full capacity for some years to come without additional concern for Sanctaria’s maritime security”.
Privately, it is understood that Allman is extremely frustrated at this last minute pull, and believes that Treasury Secretary Ben Jackson should be taking the blame for this. “If Jackson could budget properly, like any halfway competent Finance Minister should, he wouldn’t have had to pull money from Peter to pay Paul after he realised he didn’t budget enough in the first place”, one source in the Homeland Security Department told this paper today. “We still have budget for repairs and re-outfitting, but this funding was supposed to pay for new patrol boats”, they continued, “and now our sailors suffer.”
Spokespeople for other federal departments have not yet confirmed if the reallocated £10bn is going their way. A Department of Infrastructure insider however indicated that a large portion would most likely be going to fund a federal subsidy for first-time buyers, to help alleviate difficulties in stepping on to the property market. Questions to the Department press office along these lines, however, have gone unanswered.
GWEN COPLEY, National Security Correspondent
