Tonight, the Belize Defence Force has 3 brand new Mahindra pickup trucks courtesy of the Ministry of National Security. It is part of a fleet of 10 vehicles which the ministry committed to donating, and today the Minister of National Security himself handed them over to the Commander of BDF, Brigadier General David Jones.
Jones told the media this afternoon that these vehicles come at an opportune moment:
General David Jones
"These vehicles are excellent for what we needed because some of the terrains that we need to deploy are off roads. Sometimes we need to go behind the Mountain Pine Ridge area. You may be aware that there is an escort of tourist hat we do in the De Silva area, the terrain is rough and it is dirt road and those are the terrain that we use to have our Land rovers working on. We don't have the Land rovers that we use to but now these vehicles work as good as the Land rover, they are very comfortable and they stay on the road very well and they are very rugged. So far we've tested them for over a couple months now and they've been working excellent."
Reporter
"How long has the BDF been in need of these type of vehicles to be mobile as you are now?"
General David Jones
"Actually we are always in need of vehicles. As vehicles get older probably after 5 years or so after we have these vehicles it's time for us to change them. In the past we've had the Land rovers and those are not working anymore, getting spare parts for them is difficult. The British is no longer with us as they use to assist us very much with these parts and we no longer have those parts so we always have to be changing. These vehicles came just in time when we need to furnish our troops with the quick reaction capability that we needed."
According to Jones, these vehicles will complement the forces' mobility needs, which include patrolling the border and countering trans-national illegal activity.
Email
Print