But have all these increases benefited the BDF? Well, the Commander says it has its advantages and disadvantages:
Jaleeza Roberts:
"Do you think that this evolution has benefited the BDF?"
Brigadier General Anthony Velasquez, Commander, BDF
"In a way, yes. There is advantages and disadvantages to everything, right? One advantage is that the headache of sourcing vendors, sorting all these contracts, dealing with these people and paying them has been taken from us, right? So that's one less thing that we, or commander, has to worry about on a daily basis. However, a negativity to that is that we don't actually control how our spending is done, right? So it could create certain gaps in acquisition, right? But then we have to manage that, yeah."
Jaleeza Roberts:
"Okay, do you still have a procurement department or a services and support battalion, or what do you do?"
Brigadier General Anthony Velasquez, Commander, BDF
"Yeah, we have a services and support battalion. A few years ago, we separated the services and support battalion, so we had a services battalion and a support battalion. Now they are amalgamated again, but that's immaterial. That doesn't matter. We still had a department that dealt with purchasing, right, that dealt with acquisition, and they still exist. Now we are going to a new evolution where we might change the way how that is composed, because eventually if we, I am sure you heard about a proposal to privatize the mess and to give the soldiers an allowance for food, right? So when that rolls out, if it happens and it comes to fruition, then we will transform the way how our acquisition teams operate."
