–part of five-year restructuring programme announced in 2015

CHIEF of Staff of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF), Brigadier Patrick West said that every aspect of funding for the army is approved and budgeted for after careful and prudent consideration by the Defence Board; taking into account the threats to national security, the Force’s social obligations to assist civil authority, and its overall contribution to national development.

The Chief of Staff made these comments in an interview with the Ministry of the Presidency’s Public Information and Press Services Unit in response to conclusions and suppositions not based in fact published in a Stabroek News editorial on January 28.

The editorial referred to the restructuring programme for the GDF, which the Commander-in-Chief, President David Granger outlined at the Senior Officers’ Conference last week, as a huge financial burden and questioned where the funding would come from and implying that the administration intended to use future petroleum revenues.

However, Minister of State, Mr. Joseph Harmon clarified that funding for these initiatives was already budgeted for. In a Stabroek News article published on February 4, the Minister was quoted as saying, “It’s already budgeted for in our National Budget, so there is no new additional cost that the President spoke about that was not catered for in the current budget of the GDF.”

Despite the Minister’s explanation, the same February 4 article went on to state that the 2018 capital expenditure for the GDF showed no indication of the Government’s planned revamping, particularly when the figures were compared to the allocations for the previous year.

However, it is clear that the Stabroek News neglected to consider President Granger’s five-year restructuring plan for Total National Defence, which he announced in October 2015. On that occasion he explained that new policy of reform will place greater focus on the re-organisation and strengthening of the GDF in terms of personnel, readiness, infrastructure, morale and equipment.

“These changes must be designed to develop the Force’s capability to provide continuous surveillance over Guyana’s air, territorial and maritime borders and approaches, to provide search-and-rescue services to persons in distress and to provide assistance to the civil authority in response to any threat or disaster,” the Commander-in-Chief said. The changes he referred to are being implemented in phases.

The President is on record in 2015, saying that the new policy will place greater focus on the re-organisation and strengthening of the GDF on five pillars; personnel, readiness, infrastructure, morale and equipment with emphasis on the Air Corps, the Coast Guard and the Engineer Corps.

Bilateral partners
The Chief of Staff explained that, “in 2017 and 2018 everything there that we would have done was budgeted for and we still collaborated with other partners to have other things because where they are gaps and those gaps are likely to be filled by our collaborations with our bilateral partners,” he said.

In past years, the GDF has not been very integrally involved in national development efforts and the restructuring process is intended to change this. “With the guidance of the Defence Board, I think we have done more over the last year and we will continue to do a lot in the years ahead… I hope that we can make a great impact on national development. I think the biggest gap in terms of development is the need for infrastructure and with the equipment that we have, the support of the Defence Board and our collaboration with Ministry of Public Infrastructure, we can make a big contribution in this regard,” Brigadier West said.

He explained that strong engineer corps is a prominent feature of all modern military organisations, which are responsible building bridges, roads and other such vital public infrastructure. Brigadier West informed that in Roraima State, Brazil there is a special battalion, which are involved in building roads, bridges and other forms of physical infrastructure. He also assured that the expanded role that the Force will be taking on will in no way detract from its core mandate of defining aggression and protecting the country’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.

“Just google it and you will see how effective is the Engineer Corps in contributing to development and the standards required by military engineers are in some cases are much higher,” he said. Brigadier West informed that the GDF will be working closely with the Ministry of Public Infrastructure; combing the Force’s equipment with the technical capacity and expertise at the Ministry.

Boosting agriculture
Speaking on plans for the Agriculture Corps, the Chief of Staff explained that the GDF’s existing farm had some challenges, which they are working to overcome. As it is, the farm supplies about 20 percent of the Force’s dietary needs. Brigadier West said that the restructuring of this Corps is being done in a comprehensive way. He pointed to a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that was recently signed between the GDF and the University of Guyana for research in terms of using the GDF’s agriculture produce to create value-added products. The Force has also partnered with the Ministry of Agriculture and the Guyana School of Agriculture.

“The mandate I have given the farm (GDF) is to expand its current production of chicken, pork, eggs and to include other ruminants; sheep and goats. We have commenced some processing of some other products at the farm, namely ham and bacon and this commenced about a month ago. I think in the trials, which were done, we had a very positive feedback from the members of the Force, who sampled those products and the farm is now going to look at how we can produce that for the remainder of the Force. I believe that with input from the Commander-In-Chief, we will be able to have some more production being done on the farm,” Brigadier West said.

The GDF’s restructuring programme will allow for a greater level of efficiency in the execution of its mandate and to ensure maximum development within the Force. President Granger said that the Agriculture Corps will embark on agro-processing in order to produce more foods, the Air Corps and Coast Guard will be upgraded to allow for continuous surveillance over our airspace, maritime space and land-space and the Engineer Corps will be restructured and re-equipped to enable it to reengage in the development of public infrastructure and assist in disaster relief efforts. (Ministry of Presidency