More than 600 police special constables will be regularized and they will also get a pay rise.
This is after the government allocated $24.6million to police which will be for the increasing of salaries and wages and other miscellaneous.
Police Commissioner, Brigadier General Sitiveni Qiliho says it’s not only about regularizing constables but also training them.
“It doesn’t mean just regularizing them through pay, we have to take them through the training process, and they’ve got on the job experience. Now for people who get straight out of school, it takes them six months to get them through basic training and another two years for them to complete their training cycle they have to go through.”
Qiliho says they are also designing a four month program for special constables to have them be exactly the same as regular officers.
He adds that this is phase one and more phases such as increase in manpower, improvement in infrastructure will follow.
The Fiji Police Force has a budget of $193.5million, an increase of $46.6milion.
