And from police surveillance to the BDF, the Ministry has made a major shift from the mess hall system to a food allowance program. The new program was implemented in October. It sees soldiers and officers given a daily allowance to cover their meal expenses rather than eating in the mess halls. The CEO explained how it works and the logic behind it:
Francis Usher, CEO, Ministry of National Security
"The allowance started in September. We continued as we went through a transitional phase to provide the meals for them while we were solidifying everything. Yes, there will be vendors selling food. Soldiers are free to buy whatever food they want from whichever vendor. But the transitional phase of providing the meals plus the allowance has come to an end. So they are still getting the allowance, all soldiers across the board but now we're only feeding those that are operationally deployed. So if you are working on a confined duty like guards, camp guards, standby, or if you are deployed, you will still be fed plus you will collect your allowance. But those working camp duties, whether you work in an office and you work at typical eight to five, you will be required to now use the allowance to buy your food."
Jaleeza Roberts
"How much was the allowance and do you all see it as like sufficient?"
Francis Usher, CEO, Ministry of National Security
"So the allowance is $17 a day. And there are a couple of points to note there. Firstly, it's $17 a day, 365 days a year. When you're on leave, you'll still get the allowance. When you're off, you're still going to get the allowance. The allowance is across the board. That's how it's calculated. The allowance will only need to be used if you are not operationally deployed. So for those on camp, those on camp typically only work Monday to Friday, which means they will also be collecting the allowance on Saturday and Sunday when they're not working, when they're at home. Additionally, those that work on camp but are not confined duties typically go home in the evenings. So we believe the ability is there for you to not only, if you are fiscally responsible, we believe that it is enough for you to feed yourself when you're at work and still come out in the plus margin financially. Now I know that early on there was the misconception that soldiers are getting less than what prisoners get. That is false. Soldiers get $17 a day for food, 365 days a year, even on days where they're not working or where they're not on camp. If they are operationally deployed, they're still fed and collect the feeding allowance and just to clear the air, as I was at Kolve this morning, prisoners receive or the Colby Foundation receives $13.77 a day to feed the prisoners, which they say is more than enough. Now, I am not advocating for the lowering or anything like that. I just want to make the point that that is not a fair comparison. Outside of the $17 a day that the soldiers are receiving to eat, 365 days a year and 366 in a leap year, every single soldier is also receiving a live out allowance, which is $250. That is also another measure that was implemented since I came on board as CEO. So all soldiers are getting a live out allowance and they're all collecting their feeding allowance now instead of getting a meal."
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