Soldiers’ Daily Food Budget: $13.50 for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner?

Thirteen dollars and fifty cents. That is the daily food allowance for a member of the Belize Defense Force. In other words, that is what a soldier is expected to eat on for an entire day. At a time when food prices continue to climb and the cost of living keeps squeezing Belizean families, is thirteen-fifty enough to properly feed the men and women who serve on the front lines of national security? Chief Executive Officer in the Ministry of Defense, Francis Usher, concedes that the ministry will have to revisit the amount and likely adjust for inflation. Additionally, he revealed that a proposal is being discussed to further support members to acquire their meals.

 

Francis Usher, Chief Executive Officer, Ministry of Defense

“So, it is thirteen dollars and fifty cents. So you are not far off. It has been thirteen dollars and fifty cents for many years. I will be the first to admit that number, we need to seriously look at that number and adjust it for inflation. There has since been mass inflation since that number was configured. So the answer to the first part of that question is no, that number has not changed, but we are looking to see how best we can change it. I agree with you, that if you are to give then thirteen dollars and fifty cents and say feed yourself, that is not enough. The system or proposal is not just that we are expecting in a incubator that thirteen dollars and fifty cents will be enough to feed a soldier. That is not what we are saying. What we are saying is that is what is currently approved. So, right off the bat that can be given to them. If you are to give every soldier that allocation, thirteen fifty per day, it will come up to annually just north of eight million dollars.”

 

Where Is the Rest of the B.D.F. Food Budget Going?

 

The question is no longer only whether thirteen dollars and fifty cents is enough to feed a B.D.F. soldier for the day. It is also about how the rest of the food budget is being used. According to Defense C.E.O. Francis Usher, roughly eight million dollars of the approved budget goes directly toward the daily food allowance for B.D.F. members. That leaves about four and a half million dollars on the table. Under the proposal now being considered, that remaining money would be used in two ways: to buy higher-quality MREs for soldiers, and to help subsidize meals prepared inside the B.D.F. kitchen. Here is how Usher explains the plan.

 

Francis Usher, Chief Executive Officer, Ministry of Defense

“If you are to then take the remaining portion of the approved budget and do two things with it, there would be roughly four and a half million in the approved budget for this year. If you are to take what is remaining and buy about, based on my estimation, and all of this is in the proposal, it is just a proposal that we are discussing, if you are to take roughly about two million dollars and buy MREs or UK grade MREs and the reason why we would do that is because of the quality assurance and they have a five-year shelf life, that would give us enough MREs to feed the soldiers that are deployed to the observation post, all of our special patrols around the country and all of our operations. So, it will be enough to feed every single one of those for the entire year. Then there would be about two and a half remaining. The proposal speaks to, it does not speak in details, because the final details will be worked out, but it speaks to subsidizing however wins the open tender to run the kitchen, however wins that, we will subsidize them with a certain amount for meal, so they can provide a quality meal where the soldiers out of the thirteen fifty will pay, and the example I used, lets say they out of the thirteen fifty will pay three dollars for breakfast, five dollars for lunch, four dollars for dinner, just an example. Per meal the business, the company the people running the kitchen will then be subsidized for meals served so then they can make up the difference and subsidize out of the remain allocation, so they can make up the difference. And you will be providing a five or six dollars breakfast for three dollars.”

 

So, while this approach means members of the force will likely continue to receive thirteen dollars and fifty cents daily, they will pay a fraction of the cost of a meal when purchasing from the BDF kitchen.

 

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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