THE Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM), the organisation formed last August to investigate fatal shootings and reports of abuse by other agents of the State, should have its full complement of 30 new investigators by year end, given an over $100-million boost to its budget.

The disclosure, which will no doubt please local human rights lobbyists, was made by Finance Minister Audley Shaw in Parliament yesterday.

Fielding questions from the Opposition’s Lisa Hanna during the meeting of the Standing Finance Committee of Parliament examining the 2011/2012 Estimates of Expenditure in Gordon House in Kingston, Shaw said the bulk of the expenditure for this year was to move the number of investigators from the current 12 to over 30.

He added that the allocation last year was a “start-up” provision due to the fact that INDECOM began during the year and not at the beginning of the year. He also noted that posts have been reclassified since, making the compensation levels higher.

INDECOM, which began operating in August last year, will eventually subsume the Bureau of Special Investigations (BSI) which is being wound up. Last year, the budget for INDECOM, which is headed by Commissioner Terrence F Williams, was just $37.934 million.

The agency began with the assistance of 12 retired investigators. However, yesterday, Shaw said the plan was not to transfer the BSI investigators to INDECOM.

“No, the plan is not to transfer at all, we are interviewing new people,” the finance minister said.

In the meantime, he said there are about 30 major complaints per month and about 25 other types of complaints of varying sorts. Addressing concerns from Opposition member of parliament Dr Morais Guy over the $148.052-million allocated for winding up the BSI, Shaw said there were still existing cases.

“It usually takes money to wind down, you know. It’s a transitional process where you couldn’t just lock down one and start one, so that investigators who were on existing cases would continue to work and then there is a smooth transition to INDECOM,” he said.

INDECOM, in its early days, had been relegated to supervising BSI investigations. The staff of the Police Public Complaints Authority was shortly after merged with INDECOM. Addressing the matter towards the end of last year Williams had said that the full complement of 32 investigators and four crime scene technicians should be in place by the end of that year.

INDECOM has since taken on a number of cases, including the fatal shootings of chartered accountant Keith Clarke in May last year. Clarke was killed at his Kirkland Heights home in upper St Andrew by members of the security forces who were hunting for Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke.

Coke, the former Tivoli Gardens don, has since been extradited to the United States where he is awaiting trial on drug and gun-trafficking charges.

INDECOM has also opened an investigation into the fatal shooting of entertainer Robert ‘Kentucky Kid’ Hill on December 8, 2009 at his Ivy Green Crescent home in St Andrew, as well as the alleged murder of Fredrick ‘Mickey’ Hill by members of the security forces in Negril, Westmoreland in November last year.

Hill was shot under questionable circumstances.