Shania Shayal Prasad 
[file photo]
The Ministry of Policing is moving ahead with plans to establish a new Narcotics Bureau, but concerns about corrupt officers threaten to undermine the effort.
Permanent Secretary Berenado Daveta acknowledged that past scandals involving allegations of police involvement in drug-related corruption have raised serious questions about governance and transparency.
Daveta says as the Narcotics Bureau takes shape, enforcing strong accountability and good governance will be critical, yet challenging.
“Consensus decision-making processes. I think all these will help in stalling issues of corruption. And yes, unfortunately, corruption is actually creping into the organization.”
Daveta adds the Ministry has submitted budget requests to fund the bureau’s setup and recruitment.
“You need positions for people to be put out for advertisement, people to come in and fill up the spaces. Recurring budget is very important. So that has to be there, and to make sure people are getting paid when they are in. And the other thing is the operations. The operations, yeah, does take a lot of funds to actually have an effective counter narcotics operations.”
Daveta adds the new Narcotics Bureau will need more than resources; it will require a culture change within Fiji’s policing to succeed.
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