CABEI Loan to Fund B.D.F. Upgrade
Elvis Requeña
Price Barracks will be receiving a much-needed facelift in the months ahead, with a loan of thirty million U.S. dollars from the Central American Bank for Economic Integration, CABEI. The Ministry of Defense and Border Security will now move ahead with using those funds to improve the Belize Defense Force.
Elvis Requeña, Program Coordinator, Minister of Economic Development
“The loan is basically for citizen security and as such it will be distributed among the security apparatus of the country which include the military, the B.D.F., the police, the coast guard and the National Forensics Sciences Services. All branches of the security apparatus are poised to get equipment and also construction, infrastructure works.”
Dario Tapia
Dario Tapia, C.E.O., Ministry of Defense & Border Security
“When we took office in November when I had a sit-down with my minister, we spoke about what we wanted to do to make a difference. One of the major things that my minister told me was that he wants to work on the welfare of soldiers. I think that it is high time that we invest money to uplift the standard of living of the soldiers. I tell you that the conditions that we live in are not the nicest. Here we have soldiers who leave home to come and certainly they don’t expect to be living in a substandard position from when they had left home. I think that is what we want to address with this loan.”
Steven Ortega
Steven Ortega, Commander, Belize Defense Force
“In 1994, the B.D.F. moved from the original Price Barracks to over here which was Airport Camp. And so, at that time I’m not sure what happened with the budget but it wasn’t really forthcoming for the number of structures that we had over here, so throughout time these structures became dilapidated. These renovations will definitely improve the welfare of the soldiers, I mean they’ll be sleeping in better conditions, they’ll be bathing in better conditions and the kitchen will have a more decent look to it. And these, as you know, if the welfare improves, the morale of the force will definitely improve.”
Osmond Martinez
Dr. Osmond Martinez, C.E.O., Ministry of Economic Development
“In 2018, CABEI gave its first disbursal of three point seven million U.S. dollars of which only monies for salaries have been used up to now and that money is sitting down at the Central Bank of Belize. Today when we had the opportunity to take a walk through Price Barracks and we have seen that the living conditions of the B.D.F. officers is inhumane, in unacceptable and is more than needed for this project to take off.”
