Farmers say police involved in kava theft in Fiji

Transcript

The owner of the largest kava farm in Taveuni in Fiji, says he believes local police are working with criminals to steal kava crops.

An increase in reported theft of kava crops in Taveuni has left many farmers struggling to protect their livelihoods.

The National Farmers Union says the situation for farmers there is critical and police have not responded to many complaints.

Abhishek Sapra says the Green Grog Licence which allows the retail of raw kava crops has led to the increase of theft since it was introduced 3 years ago.

He spoke to Indira Stewart.

ABHISHEK SAPRA: We have had about in less than two months, a theft of over 120,000 dollars. All of our kava is exported. We've worked with scientists from the EU who are interested in our kava just because my grand-dad has been planting kava for 60 years. And so our farm has been going on for over you know, 130 years.

INDIRA STEWART: And you reported these theft cases to the police?

AS: Yeah, we reported the cases to the police and each and every time when we took them to the spot, we showed them all the evidence possible, people to go to, who to ask and question and everything. Not all of it was always done. These police officers sort of back away, they don't go further than that.

IS: Wow, so you pretty much gave all the information to the police, everything they needed to go on and -

AS: Every single thing. Even up to saying that we would pay from our own pocket for sending our own samples to the USP lab to get the kava tested to figure out if the stolen kava which we've received was actually matching the kava on our farms. And this is about 3000 dollars which we would be forking out from our own pocket. And they did nothing about it, it's been over a month now.

IS: Why do you think the police aren't really responding?

AS: Quite honestly, some of them unfortunately I do think work with some of the criminals around here. Nobody trusts the police over here. I mean, if we can have 120,000 dollars worth of grog stolen and no one's doing anything about it, and we're hearing stories from everywhere that people are having kava stolen, even our workers are having kava stolen from their farms. So yeah, it's really upsetting. The district officer over here, I implicated him and other people within his office who were actually complicit in all of these crimes and we lodged a complaint and so far I think it's been over two months. We've had absolutely no response. Where just for our side of the island if anyone ever reports a crime, the police hardly ever ever show up.

IS: That must frustrate so many farmers.

AS: It is, it is. It's very frustrating for everyone. It actually really brings down our drive to want to try and do better for ourselves over here. So many people, locals, are actually selling off their land and leaving because the situation over here in terms of crime, in terms of government amenities like water and proper roads is just diminishing. We're just going backwards.

The Police Commander of the Northern Divsion, Shiri Singh, has denied there has been an increase of reported kava theft in Taveuni.