Commander Velasquez Responds to BDF Expenditures
For weeks, we have been looking at millions of dollars in Ministry of Defense supply spending, including a series of invoices that fall just under the ten-thousand-dollar threshold. But beyond the paperwork, there is another key question: are those purchases matching what the Belize Defence Force actually uses? Today, we asked B.D.F. Commander Brigadier General Anthony Velasquez, who took over in late January 2026. He says he can only speak to the past six months, but from what he has seen, soldiers account for the largest share of consumption.
Anthony Velasquez
Brigadier General Anthony Velaquez, Commander, Belize Defense Force
“Well we have a lot of soldiers. I believe the BDF is the biggest consumer from the government in terms of feeding. We work twenty-four hours a day. We provide three meals a day to our soldiers, even those deployed. So definitely we are the biggest consumer. So I can tell you that since I took over in January that is my job, to make sure our soldiers receive quality food and that they receive the proper food from the vendors that bring them to Price Barracks and whatever we receive we give to our soldiers.”
Paul Lopez
“How is the supply process right now, given the investigation?”
Brigadier General Anthony Velaquez
“The supply process continues. The soldiers have to eat so the supply process continues. So, the contractors or vendors selected at the ministry level, they continue to operate. They continue to deliver and we continue to consume those deliverables.”
According to Commander Velasquez, the BDF still has a say in the supply process and can request specific items for the ministry to purchase through its suppliers.
New Soldiers Join BDF Modernization Push
More boots on the ground could mean a stronger national security presence across Belize. Following Wednesday night’s story on the more than one hundred and thirty new B.D.F. intakes, News Five asked Commander Brigadier General Anthony Velasquez how this new group will support the force’s mandate. Velasquez says the B.D.F. is in the middle of a modernization process, and growing the force is part of a wider effort to better respond to the country’s security needs.
Anthony Velasquez
Brigadier General Anthony Velasquez, Commander, Belize Defense Force
“It is a culminating event in one’s life. I was eighteen years old when I entered recruit training and it changed my life completely. I entered as a civilian and I left as a soldier. It is a dynamic process where you stop thinking about, in our civilian lives, we mostly concern ourselves, on a basic level. Of course, you think about your family and friends. But the recruit training process molds you into a unit, a team, where you have to work hard to make sure you don’t let down your fellow team members and you begin to understand military language, the way how they talk and work together. So, by the time you finish recruit training you are a completely different person, and you begin to understand military language the way how they talk, how they interact with each other. So by the time you finish recruit training you are a completely different person. We instill the military values, the ethos in you and when you finish you understand suffering, deprivation and sacrifice, devotion to duty. So, it is a transformational process and I am very proud of those young people who made it.”
The Belize Defense Force has launched another recruitment drive to further expand its numbers later in the year.
Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.
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