Assistant Commissioner of Police Aporosa Lutunauga has sounded a timely warning about manpower and resource shortages within the Fiji Police Force.
The force, he said, lacks manpower, with 5085 officers, and 1300 of them based in the Western Division.
“Given the changing security landscape and the evolving crime landscape, we need boots on the ground. We need eyes on the ground to assist us in maintaining law and order,” he said.
With a population of just above 900,000, that may mean one officer for every 182 people right now.
In December last year, Police Chief Operations officer Assistant Commissioner of Police Livai Driu spoke about having one police officer serving the interest, security and welfare of 194 Fijians.
The force’s statistics, Mr Lutunauga said, showed the vast majority of people involved in the drug trade were aged between 18 and 35 for instance.
He spoke about migration as well, suggesting when operations in the Southern Division were raised, people involved in criminal activities migrated to the West.
“We know that these are networks. The drug cartels are networks, and they operate with intelligence also, because to them, they are operating on a network basis.”
Mr Lutunauga said the force would continue to work to dismantle and eliminate the drug trade.
However, we reflect on our numbers and wonder whether that is sufficient to deal with our challenges.
In saying that, we accept that in the broader fight against crime, we say effective deployment of existing resources, guided by experienced leadership and good coordination, is essential.
This, obviously, would rely on good co-ordination, driven by seasoned senior officers and their support officers.
We consider the ratio in New South Wales in Australia for instance, where the 2022-23 annual report for the NSW Police Force stated: ‘At the end of 2022-23, the NSW Police Force had 21,129 employees: 17,062 police officers and 4067 administrative officers.
It serves more than eight million people – approximately 32% of Australia’s total population.’
Ironically, even with those numbers, in 2022, Labor police spokesman Walt Secord said during a budget estimates hearing that NSW had the fewest number of police officers in Australia — 244 per 100,000 residents.
Back on the homefront, as Mr Lutunauga said, we need boots on the ground.
The question is how many more officers do we need to be effective?
That’s the pressing question that must weigh heavily on the mind of Police Commissioner Rusiate Tudravu and senior policy makers.
As the illicit drug trade becomes more entrenched and organised, our response must also evolve!
Can we afford to wait for change though?
