SVG Coast Guard personnel departing for other pastures

The year 2024 was an exceptionally busy one for the SVG Coast Guard with an increase in search and rescue operations and patrols. It was also a year of challenges as the issue of officer attrition continues to plague the organization.

Senior officers of the SVG Coast Guard Service gave an overview of operations on their “On The Beat” programme on the Topic :”A Review of the SVG Coast Guard Service in 2024: Achievements, Challenges, and Strategic Planning for 2025 and Beyond.”

Coming off the death and destruction caused by Hurricane Beryl on July 1, 2024, Coast Guard vessels undertook numerous trips to support emergency relief agencies.

“We … provided a lot of logistics support to different government ministries and also regional and international [agencies]. For persons who wanted to traverse from the mainland to the Southern Grenadines, the Coast Guard was there readily,” Lieutenant Williams Theobalds said.

He disclosed that patrols increased from 447 in 2023 to 498 in 2024 in line with the organization’s set goal of carrying out increased operations last year.

There was also an increase in search and rescue operations, although it was noted that miscommunication, and errors in information sometimes hindered the ability to respond to emergencies.

“Sometimes information gets to us late. Most of the time it is not what we expect to reach us and often times it comes from second-hand channels in that the person who is in distress does not relay the information to the Coast Guard so we can question them,” Acting Commander, Lieutenant Deon Henry said.

Lieutenant Kemron Beach in his contribution to the program added that establishing additional bases in Canouan and Bequia has led to an improvement in response time when they are called out to assist medical evacuation and search and rescue calls.

“The Quick Response Crew, they try to get their response time down to less than five minutes…. Through training we have been able to respond in a prompt and efficient manner. We have challenges with equipment, but personnel showed that they are resilient.”

Despite these successes last year, the Coast Guard Head said that the departure of officers who leave to join other regional and international law enforcement agencies and the military, has left holes in the organization which they often have to fill with auxiliary officers from other departments.

“We have persons who are leaving, persons who the Coast Guard needs for maintenance of the vessels, and persons who have the experience.” Henry said the problem has been quite noticeable “for 2024, 2023 and maybe even the last ten years”.

He pointed to another headache facing the organization, that of maintaining the vessels. He said the gear units of the vessels has run up the Coast Guard’s maintenance bill.

“Last year, we lost about four [gear units] … in operations at sea. These units cost something like EC$21,000 just to replace. The cost of spares is very expensive and the cost of tools is also expensive.”