Fiji police face vehicle shortage

Transcript

Fiji's Police Commissioner says his force is struggling with a lack of resources, particularly the availability of vehicles.

Ben Groenwald has pointed to the issue when questioned on the efficiency of the force's investigative unit.

Mr Groenwald told Koro Vaka'uta the lack of resources is not helping.

BEN GROENWALD:  Rescues is always a challenge to any police organisation.  Unfortunately, yes, we have a shortage of police vehicles at this stage and it is in effect an obstacle in the successful investigation of crime.

KORO VAKA'UTA:  So, how many vehicles are available in terms of police work?

BG:  Well I do not have the figures with me at this stage but my latest estimate is that we have about 45% of our running fleet available at this stage.  It is a process.  Some of them have been boarded and we are waiting for replacement.  The replacement is a long process and we are waiting for the replacement and unfortunately we also have some of our vehicles have fairly high kilometres on.

KV:  How is this affecting investigations and police work?

BG:  Any shortage of resources, whether it is mobile, vehicle shortage or manpower, is an obstacle in any police organisation as I indicated and of course it is that we do not have enough vehicles so that we can put all out investigators on the road at the same time.

KV:  There's also another concern brought up, the issue of the competency level of junior detectives.  Are you happy with how that's working?

BG:  I won't say it's the competency level.  It is unfortunate that we are in constant process of training these people with the assistance of our police friends of the AFP, (Australian Federal Police), and New Zealand.  We will be opening another investigative course that will address this. We are on constant training of our people but as indicated that takes time to form a proper investigator in terms of investigations.

KV:  In terms of investigations, what sort of detection rate are you at and where should you be at?

BG:  My key performance indicator is that I need to perform at about 60% success rate in investigations.  Unfortunately a comparison between the first three months of 2014 and the first three months of 2015 indicate we could only reach a 55% success rate.

KV:  How can you improve on that?  Is this going to mean more assistance from government level?

BG:  Any shortage of any resources is an obstacle in the success rate of your policing as a whole, not only your investigative issues.

KV:  But you're confident that the resource issue will be improving and that you have the budgetary support?

BG:  Hopefully it's an interim process.  The vehicles have been ordered.  It is a process that goes through the government structures and hopefully this shortage will be addressed in the near future.