UK funds police upgrade

The Belize Police Department has gotten some of the finances they say they need to overhaul the force into a well tuned, properly managed machine. This morning, British High Commissioner Tim David handed over a grant, valued at 1.75 million Belize dollars, to Minister of National Security Jorge Espat. The funds are intended to help Belize implement some of the recommendations made in a U.K. study last year that revealed areas like financial management and training need urgent attention. The grant will involve the importation of British experts and specialized consultants to work with the Belizean officials. Senior Police Adviser for the U.K. government, Paul Mathias says, innately, the Belize Police Department is a good one.

Paul Mathias, Senior Police Adviser

“I think the important thing is to say that the Belize Police Department is, in potential terms, a very good police department. What it needs, which is something it’s not alone in discovering, which has been discovered throughout the world, even in England and we’re still doing it, is that you have to be organized. You have to have a system, you have to have plans, you need to know what you’re able to do, you’ve got to prioritize the work, you’ve got to make sure that the people that are doing the job for you are the right people. So that’s about selection and recruitment which are also personnel matters. It’s about making sure that they’re properly paid, that they are supported by the right resources.”

Jorge Espat, Minister of National Security

“There is tremendous excitement inside of the Belize Police Department for us in fact to update the methods of operations inside. There are so many things that we can do…the size of the Belize Police Department, the rank structure of the Belize Police Department, the formations. For example, we have six districts in our country but we have nine formations. One of the recommendations is to have a smaller, leaner structure. So that in fact, we want to have six formations that will be accountable in our six districts. So there are tremendous areas of improvement and we certainly are looking to the arrival of these advisers.”

Minister Espat says on average, it takes fifteen million dollars a year to run the Police Department. He says the department is heavily in debt due to poor financial management.