Defence Force boats may be put on hold to save money

THE Ingraham government’s plans to spend $200 million on new Defence Force boats may be put on hold, with Prime Minister Perry Christie noting yesterday that the government must now question the “affordability” of the move.

In August of this year, Mr Christie’s government appointed an 11-person “management committee” with responsibility for overseeing the acquisition of 11 new Defence Force vessels.

At the time, Minister of National Security Dr Bernard Nottage said the acquisition of the boats was expected to cost the government $119 million with associated costs such as project management costs and those related to substantial upgrades of existing facilities and other infrastructural improvements, taking the total cost up to $200 million.

“The former government actually had engaged in negotiations and discussions with boat builders. We have continued those discussions and the question really is now affordability and whether or not there can be the kind of terms that enable us to effect the purchases we would wish and really not have to put a great outlay of cash to have that happen for us. And so its a matter that is continuing and we are going to be driven by a need for us to be prudent but at the same time we know we can not render the Defence Force to be an ineffective force so it’s a question of how much we order and how much we’ll prepare and how quickly we can do those things,” Mr Christie said.

At the moment, the Prime Minister said, the priorities of the government must necessarily be influenced by the national debt.

Going forward he said his administration must be prudent and work on a cost-benefit basis in all areas, including the Defence Force.

“We know poaching is a major, major issue for our country and we have set about trying to minimise that by establishing very good relations with the Dominican Republic and having exchanged visits to reduce the incidence of Dominican fisherman poaching in our waters.

“So I say that only to say that we need boats, we need to have an effective force in our waterways and the only way that we can do that is to commit to capital expenditure.

“We are working on all the terms and if in fact we are able to so organise ourselves, and I am anticipating that we will be able to do so because you know it takes some time to build ships and a lot of effort has gone into thinking about it and even encouraging the ship builder to consider the possibility of building one of the ships here in the ship yard in Freeport, and so a lot of thought has gone into it and a lot of effort towards minimising the cost and being able to get the Bahamas to benefit from the fact that we are purchasing these ships to be built. And so I expect at the end of the day that we’ll be doing some things even if it takes us some time to do it,” he said.

Comments

dacy says...

LOL...HOW IS THIS MAN ABLE TO SAY ABSOLUTELY NOTHING USING SO MUCH WORDS IS BEYOND ME!....HOOKWINKED!

Posted 19 December 2012, 12:50 p.m. Suggest removal

242 says...

Can't afford boats for Your Country's Defense force but can afford several referendums, taking your entire cabinet to work in Abaco and a pointless investigation of the ministry of tourism. Priorities of the Christie government

Posted 19 December 2012, 2:12 p.m. Suggest removal

concernedcitizen says...

the salaries of the 11 cronie management committe would probably pay for 2 boats ,throw in Baltron Bethels salary ,the money the Snake and them are getting to fool with CWC ,AND GET RID OF THE NEW NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY ,what an oxymoron that is ,and there is 2 more boats ...

Posted 19 December 2012, 2:24 p.m. Suggest removal

dacy says...

LOL....YOU GET SWING...

Posted 19 December 2012, 3:15 p.m. Suggest removal

Straight_Talk_Bahamas says...

I will wait to see if the referendum will be put on hold as well

Posted 19 December 2012, 11:53 p.m. Suggest removal

concernedcitizen says...

in june we added 62 more marines , we got over 1000, marines protecting coral harbour and about 2 to 4 running big boats that were giving to us by other country s,,we had more but because of poor maintance and bad seamanship we wreck the boats ,,it would be funny if the country wasn,t up to our ears in debt

Posted 20 December 2012, 8:47 a.m. Suggest removal

jt says...

This is outrageous. Bahamian fishermen and Bahamas territorial waters need all the protection they can get. This is too expensive but a $42,000 energy usage report is just fine? Come on. I hope the Dominicans are enjoying their Bahamian fish and conch this Christmas season...

Posted 22 December 2012, 1:30 a.m. Suggest removal

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