Coast Guard efficiency entirely hinged on financing - Atherly
2003 budget `grossly inadequate'
Stabroek News
January 16, 2004
The operational efficiency of the Guyana Defence Force Coast Guard is now hinged entirely on the availability of finances, which now restricts its capacity to intercept fuel smugglers and illegal fishing boats, according to army Chief-of-Staff, Brigadier Michael Atherly.
Brigadier Atherly says the interceptions made last year were of vessels that were part of larger fleets, most of which escaped because the Coast Guard is operating with limited resources.
"It is because of the limited resources [of the Coast Guard] that most of the fleets escaped," he said yesterday, when the Disciplined Forces Commission visited the Coast Guard Headquarters.
"Certainly we would like to do more," he told the Commissioners, "[But] the budget is one of our biggest problems [and] we only conduct operations that we can financially manage."
Last year the Coast Guard intercepted six illegal fishing boats and two fuel smuggling boats.
What made these additional catches possible, according to Atherly, who described 2003's budgetary allocation as "grossly inadequate," was the additional funding that was given to the army.
He said accessing additional finances is also a problem, as the bureaucracy in the Ministry of Finance often results in a late delivery of funds, if they are available.
"It doesn't make for timely operations... sometimes we get intelligence on short notice and we have to move."
He said special funding should be made readily available in such situations, possibly through the Office of the President, as was practised in previous years.
But Atherly said limited financing is just one of the problems that restrict the operational scope of the Coast Guard. Coast Guard Commander Terrence Pyle says that another is the limit of its capacity to patrol Guyana's Exclusive Economic Zone, as there is only one vessel that can manoeuvre the high seas, the GDFS Essequibo. Several illegal fishing boats, particularly those from neighbouring Venezuela, have been found in Guyana's EEZ over the last year.
The members of the Commission toured the headquarters and the GDFS Essequibo yesterday and also later visited the Air Corps.
The Commission was established to inquire into the operations of the Disciplined Forces - the Guyana Police Force, the Guyana Defence Force, the Guyana Prison Service and the Guyana Fire Service - to make recommendations to the National Assembly for their reform and sustained professional development.
Justice of Appeal Ian Chang is chairman of the Commission which also includes former Attorney-General Charles Ramson, S.C.; former National Security Advisor Brigadier (rtd) David Granger; former University of Guyana Vice-Chancellor Professor Harold Lutchman; and attorney Anil Nandlall.