And while the Coast Guard, and even the Belize Defense Force, are out patrolling the seas and the jungles, their salaries haven't always been reflected the level of work they put in. For the Coast Guard, they've been working with the Ministry of Defense to adjust salaries for hundreds of officers. And according to the Minister, they are also adjusting salaries for the soldiers.
Admiral Elton Bennett, Commandant, Belize Coast Guard
"When we recognized that we had shortcomings in the salaries for our personnel, we went to the drawing table and we came up with a people operation, a long term and a short term plan that will address the immediate shortcomings and then to put in place some long term initiatives to ensure that this doesn't reoccur. So we selected a small team of clerks and here at the Coast Guard headquarters but also assigned personnel at the Ministry of National Defense and then we did everything that we could've done in terms of providing the resources and the power to address this issue and we've done quiet a lot and since the start of this operation in September, we've adjusted 35 personnel in September, in October it was 87 and in November, 97 salaries were adjusted so that requires a very large effort from a small team of individuals to ensure that our Coast Guard personnel receive the salary that they deserve."
Florencio Marin Jr., Minister of National Defense & Border Security
"There's a constant revision, this is a very important thing that we have to get right with the salaries of our seamen and our soldiers and as you've noticed in the Coast Guard what they've done is a special Taskforce to address it, as well we're doing the same in the BDF and overseen by the Ministry because it is something that we just have to deal with, we're dealing with over like 1000 personnel so it's not something that we can do within one week, we just have to go through it painstakingly and hopefully we get it quickly within the next coming year."
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