Minister of the Interior Kari Rajamäki and Supreme Police Commander Markku Salminen have rejected out of hand the idea that funding problems for Finland’s National Traffic Police could be fixed through temporary redundancies or layoffs among personnel.
Salminen also said that the chief of the Traffic Police unit, Teuvo Veijalainen, did not have the legal right to announce any such layoffs.
Earlier on Thursday the Traffic Police released a statement of possible temporary layoffs of 660 personnel, about 600 of whom were to be police officers.
The Traffic Police charge that there is a funding gap equivalent to about three weeks of pay costs.
Chief Veijalainen says that solutions have been sought in talks with the Supreme Police Command and the Ministry of the Interior.
"Only a day ago it was revealed that there were not even any plans for dealing with the EUR 1.5 million gap in income and spending commitments." Veijalainen says that there have been attempts to shore the gap through any number of means. "We have placed limits on Sunday work, banned overtime, and compromised on replacing old vehicles. At the beginning of the year we eliminated 50 posts, and placed a ban on filling all vacant posts. In spite of this, we are three weeks’ wages short."
Veijalainen laments that resource allocation to the unit has declined as the number of tasks has increased.
Interior Minister Rajamäki also said that the announcement had been poorly timed. He noted that a working group is currently looking for a solution to the funding gap. It is to make its proposal later this month.
