President Donald Ramotar this morning said doing more to strengthen the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) will depend on economic growth and he warned the army to ensure that it gets value for money in its procurement.
In his first address to the annual officers’ conference of the GDF as Commander-in-Chief, Ramotar also highlighted responsibility saying that never again should the army lose equipment like the 30 AK-47’s some of which were used in the 2002-2008 crime wave. “We must protect what we have,” he declared.
In his welcoming remarks, Chief of Staff of the GDF, Commodore Gary Best spoke of the necessity to re-capitalize the force stating that the infrastructure and military materiel require upgrades and in some cases replacement.
“I am willing and ready to do more in strengthening the army,” Ramotar said. “That of course will depend on the growth of our economy,” he added. The president told the gathering at the army’s Camp Ayanganna headquarters that “we must also see that we get value for every penny that we spend.” He said that Guyana is a poor developing country and “we must be conscious too that we still have many more people in this country that we need to empower so that they also can lift themselves out of poverty.”
The president said that the army must ensure that it gets value for money in its procurement noting that he sat in the Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly for five years “and some of the things that I saw and heard I didn’t like.” Ramotar also urged the officers to pay attention to moral issues.
