Who sees maritime borders?
Ido not think that I will be divulging our secret if I mention that our maritime borders, in particular, are neither secure nor safe and easy to penetrate and those who are interested in the matter and want bad for us know this, and do not wait to read it in a newspaper column.
There has been a great deal of controversy in the means of communication about the multiplicity of unfriendly parties penetrating our borders, and the inability of the coast guard forces, if they exist, to confront these and this is a disaster if proven true.
Another controversy is taking place about the inefficiency of the operators of the electronic security system specialized in border control, which has cost millions.
It is also strongly rumored that there are influential names affiliated to religious brotherhood parties behind these contracts, and this neglect, or destruction, as interests belonging to them, or a specific person, participated in presenting a monitoring offer, which we previously wrote about years ago, but the concerned authorities rejected it because of the inefficiency of the foreign company manufacturing the devices.
The tender was re-floated, after the company in question was excluded, but whoever went out of the door came back through the window, and this time succeeded in selling the Ministry of Interior an expensive security system, which turned out a short time later that it is inefficient and the same company whose offer was rejected is behind the new inefficient system which has its own shortcomings and is unable to monitor the movements at the borders, especially at night but the concerned authorities continued to use it, and the situation has worsened, with the failure of the company supplying the system to maintain it, in addition to its invalidity in the first place.
This is in addition to the complaints of the Coast Guard personnel or management about the lack of its equipment and the inability of the existing ones, the loss of large sums of money spent on their purchase, the purchase of equipment for the armed fast pursuit boats that are not working or are in a miserable condition.
We hope that His Excellency the Minister of Interior will intervene in the matter, verify all rumors, stop this security breach, and address this shortcoming or dangerous situation.
It is unfortunate, if what is being circulated, that our borders, despite their relative shortness, are vulnerable to penetration by smugglers, drug dealers and others, and even fishermen from neighboring countries, and our security services are unable to confront them, or at least reduce their danger if not possible to stop them completely.
We wish the Ministry of Interior, the active Public Relations Department, to clarify the status of our maritime borders, and respond to rumors about their ease of penetration.