F.O.B. Assessment Complete; Ministry Sourcing Finance to Fix

While the media spoke with the Acting Chief of Staff of the Belize Defence Force, Lieutenant Colonel Jermaine Burns, he was asked about an update on the forward operating base at Sarstoon. As we reported earlier this year, the F.O.B. had been compromised by erosion and the soldiers had to be relocated to Barranco Village from where they are deployed daily to patrol the southern border. Lieutenant Colonel Burns says that the assessment and engineering report has been completed and now the Ministry of National Security is seeking financing to repair the F.O.B.

Jermaine Burns

Lt. Col. Jermaine Burns, Acting Chief of Staff, Belize Defence Force

“Our troops maintain presence in the south. They are still moving from Barranco on a daily basis from six hundred to eighteen hundred in the evenings and staying there during the daytime and then patrolling the river where the need is required. The troops then pull back to Barranco in the evening times and they are back and forth every day. You would imagine that eats up a lot of our logistics. I know that the engineers have been sent out there specific with the skill to look at the erosion problem and what we can do in respect to putting up a structure there that is not going to be susceptible to the erosion; we are looking at also putting up a structure to stop the erosion, some sort of wall. And I am no expert in the area, but I know that the project has already been written up and is at the ministry. They are going to look at it, they are going to look at where they get the funding for this particular project and then it’s getting it on the way for the construction to start, the reconstruction I would say. So I don’t want to quote a time in which this is going to be finished or be held to that time, but I know that our powers that be at the ministry are pushing very hard for this to come to fruition.”