The Tribune

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.