While laying out his administration’s new defence thrust, President Irfaan Ali yesterday emphasised the importance of taking care of the wellbeing of each soldier and announced that in addition to scholarships, affordable housing would be made available and 150 pre-qualified soldiers would be benefitting soon.
“I am pleased to say to you that we have already communicated to the Chief of Staff to have the first 150 officers and ranks pre-qualified with the banks [for] not only house lots but housing facilities,” President Ali said in his maiden address to the force’s annual officer’s conference, where he highlighted the need for the operations of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) to become more community-based.
It was the only part of his speech that elicited a round of applause from the officers present at the National Cultural Centre, where the two-day conference was opened under the theme ‘Enhancing National Security and Development through Capacity Building, Empowering and Strengthening Community Policies’.
