News

Defence Committee works on white papers

February 6, 2016 8:15 pm

Work is underway to prepare white papers for the defence forces and the Immigration Department.

This has been confirmed to FBC News by the Chair of Defence Review Committee – Esala Teleni after his meeting with the three institutes this week.

Commodore Teleni says the ‘white paper’ will assist the Police Force, the Republic of Fiji Military Forces and the Immigration Department… to work for a common goal.

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Commodore Teleni adds the white paper is the future document or future directions for the respective organisations.

He says the policy is a guiding document.

“We have been doing this for the past few months for them to develop their own white papers and what we are going through now is the process to make sure that the white papers are aligned with the government policies, the white papers are aligned with the national security strategy that we are developing. So this is an ongoing consultation between the review team and the respective security agencies. It is a government policy document entailing the environment in which the police, the military and immigration operates. Their principle tasking. What sort of weaknesses or gaps they have and how and what will be the way forward for them. That’s really the basic overview of the white paper.”

Commodore Teleni says the document will be made public after its endorsement.

Consultations for the documents will continue for a few more weeks before each agency will present their drafts.

The white paper is expected to be finalized by May.