The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

SOME 400 people were promoted in the Royal Bahamas Defence Force earlier this month, and Commodore Raymond King is especially pleased with how many women are moving up the ranks.

He said the promotional exercise was the third in four years.

“I’m pleased to say 28 per cent of the persons promoted were women,” he told reporters. “You have a female population of some 18.5 per cent, 28 per cent were promoted, and now we have two of our most senior women in the service, Captains Sonia and Natasha Miller, as a part of the executive and command leadership.

“Women represent some 23 per cent of the executive team.

“Amongst the senior enlisted, there’s a 25 per cent person elevated to lead from a warrant officer and senior rates perspective, and so we’ve been deliberate and showing gender equity females given due consideration in the organisation.”

Commodore King said the RBDF continues to plan to help Haitian authorities stem the violence gripping that country.

He also said officers have been helping the Turks and Caicos Islands, where he estimated there have been two joint migrant arrests this year.

“We continue to work, continue to support them,” he said. “We continue to defend our borders in the southern Bahamas.”

“We’re being effective in dissuading and stemming the tide coming into this country significantly over the last four years, but we’re watching the intel and the movement of those vessels because the first movement this year, we’ve seen a number of vessels left, and they disperse in different directions.”

He added the force looks forward to enlisting some 150 young recruits next month.

In December, 721 Royal Bahamas Police Force officers were promoted to corporal, sergeant, inspector, assistant superintendent, superintendent and chief superintendent.