When he took office in 2019, President Nayib Bukele promised to increase the number of military personnel to 40,000, and today it already reaches 24,500, the largest number compared to Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, to which 27 are added. 1,460 police officers.
In an approach to the problem, the newspaper La Prensa Gráfica pointed out that the defense budget has increased in the last five years from 141 to 250.6 million dollars in 2023 and that now the uniformed personnel along with the declared war against the gangs Police take part in operations.
Data published by the magazine shows that El Salvador is the second country on the isthmus to allocate the most budget to defense and security tasks, including investments in the functioning of the police and armed forces, as well as the purchase of sophisticated weapons and armored vehicles Other.
“According to the budgetary data of the so-called CA-4, there are 177,167 members of armed units in the north of the isthmus, of which 103,962 are public security personnel or police officers and the other 73,205 are defense personnel, most of them military personnel,” the publication said.
For comparison, the magazine highlighted the difference between medical personnel and teaching staff, noting that these four countries have only 56,971 doctors, fewer than the personnel of their armies.
The publication highlighted that El Salvador has increased its defense budget by 61 percent over the past five years, from $141.2 million in 2018 to $250.6 million in 2023.
According to LPG, this does not include “the budget increases, which the Ministry of Defense amounted to a total of 195.8 million in the same period”.
For its part, Expediente Abierto highlighted that in El Salvador defense and security spending was carried out “in a context of insufficient progress in terms of budgetary transparency by governments and, in particular, by the public bodies responsible for these sectors”.
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