Transcript
FRED FAKARI: Our role is not so much prosecution, but recommendations and we are expecting the institutions to do the right thing when we fine something that needs to be improved.
KOROI HAWKINS: Is this the role that you as the ombudsman have always seen for your office? Are you satisfied with the new legislation?
FF: Prosecutions part of investigations are done by other institutions. And what we do here is when we don't investigate things that can be taken to court and that's one of the things we cannot do. If there are other means to deal with that particular issue then - such as a criminal thing, then we do not investigate.
KH: But you can pass that on to the police?
FF: Yes, we can recommend that to the other institutions and that's where the co-cooperation is useful for us now that we can work closely with other institutions. We can also now listen people who cannot write but they have a genuine claim they can come to us. We can listen to them and allow them to speak to us. We record their complaints and then put that into writing.
KH: That's nice, so rural people can complain as well?
FF: Exactly, that's a new one. In the past we only expected people to write to us and this has been the weakness of every legislation has tried to protect our people because not everyone knows how to write and also often people weren't interested in [the] processes so we give licences to these to allow people to continue the way they do.
KH: The leader of the opposition in parliament talking on this bill - Jeremiah Manele - he made some calls for more awareness to be carried out in rural areas and for the implementation for this not act, this new law. Is that something you have a budget for?
FF: We have produced hundreds before and we use them occasionally when we have public talks to people, but we need to do more. I not going to put any particular figures to that outreach programmes, but it's going to come under our outreach programme, so we will see how that looks. That's an important area of our work. Because when we do that i think it helps people.
