
The Belize Defence Force soldiers will see two new allowances next month following Cabinet’s approval. The Jungle and Maritime Allowance, and the Bush Allowance will be paid across the board for both commissioned and non-commissioned officers. According to Minister of National Defence and Border Security, Oscar Mira, since taking over the portfolio, he has been lobbying on behalf of the soldiers by way of salaries, allowances and other welfare programs.

Oscar Mira, Minister of National Defense and Border Security: “Let us have these two allowances be paid to every single member of the Belize Defence Force. They have agreed and we have all the finances already secured to pay them those two allowances. Now these allowances when we negotiated and when we lobbied, this ministry lobbied for those allowances, that was done in May of 2024. That was when it was agreed and it was also agreed that we would take about three to four months to look at the salary and adjust it and bring it to where it’s supposed to be. It didn’t happen. The pay office was working overtime in trying to put all the numbers together. As I said I told my CEO this is a priority, we need to make sure that we fix it and we’ll fix it once and for all. So we’re now at the stage where in July of 2025 so next month’s pay we are going to give the Belize Defence Force soldiers all of them the two allowances that we had agreed upon and we are retroactively giving them those allowances from May of 2024. We have those monies secured, had it already and we are going to give them that allowance.”
Reporter: Do you have a figure in terms of how much the government is spending on these two allowances ?
Oscar Mira, Minister of National Defense and Border Security:“The allowances across the board is not only for the non commissioned officers, it’s for the commissioned officers. So it’s for the whole of BDF. So whole of BDF will get these two allowances. I think that it is somewhere between $2.8 million dollars that we are going to the BDF in allowances.”