Steps underway to boost army's marine capacity - President Says soldiers well-trained By Patrick Denny Stabroek News July 8, 2000 The Guyana Defence Force has never been as well trained as it is at the present time, according to President Bharrat Jagdeo, and he said that the strength of the army should not be assessed only on its marine capability. But, he added, "I would initiate a process [to equip the Coast Guard] to ensure that we have marine capability." When pressed on how soon this would take place, he said that the process had already started. Guyanese have been expressing concern about the under-equipped Coast Guard which has had to rely on a borrowed vessel to carry out periodic patrols of the country's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) particularly in the wake of recent Surinamese aggression. Speaking with reporters yesterday at a mid-afternoon press conference at the Office of the President, Jagdeo said that most of the increase in the army's recurrent budget, which had multiplied ten-fold from the sum expended before the PPP/Civic government took office, had gone into training. "So you cannot just look at the marine capabilities. You have to look at the overall capability of our army." The President added that he thought "the Surinamese know that. "You have to look at the numerical strength of our army; the training and then you have to look at the equipment and not just at the marine equipment that we have." Earlier this year, while acknowledging the under-financing of the army's capital budget, President Jagdeo said that it was a question of the Guyanese people being convinced that it had to be considered as important as provisions for the social sector such as education, health, water and roads. At a press conference following the June 3, ouster of the CGX Energy Inc oil rig by the Suriname Navy, he said that the media should help to sensitise the public to the necessity of expenditure on the military being accorded a priority as high as that for expenditure in the social sector. At a press conference earlier this month, Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon, had said that the need to address the crisis occasioned by floods across the country, had to rate higher on the list of priorities than equipping the army. However at a subsequent press conference he disclosed that steps were being taken to address the problem. Dr Luncheon said then that a team had been appointed to assess the needs of the Coast Guard and would subsequently be dispatched to the US to procure the necessary equipment which would be facilitated by a US government department. He also told Stabroek News that the capability of the vessels being offered would be assessed to determine whether they could be adapted for high seas patrol, if the primary use was for coastal patrols. This newspaper understands too that under the maritime agreement being negotiated with the US some equipment would be made available for drug interdiction activities which would include patrolling of the country's EEZ. Guyana's lack of marine and air capability had been noted by the Surinamese military according to reports in De Ware Tijd, a Surinamese newspaper. Follow the goings-on in Guyana in Guyana Today