Fijian Police are concerned with the alarmingly high number of prank calls received through its 917 emergency lines.
Police say that with thousands of calls received daily, most were prank or blank calls.
Fiji Police Chief Operations Officer ACP Sakeo Ganivatu said from February 1-25, they recorded 36,080 calls received through 917.
He said of those, only 234 calls were genuine; and a total of 19,072 were blank calls and 13,601 were pranks.
ACP Sakeo said those calls tied up critical phone lines and delayed first responders’ ability to respond to real emergency calls.
“These sorts of calls delay our service delivery and people who are desperately in need of our services are being left out because the lines are usually engaged,” said ACP Sakeo.
He said they had identified a few frequent callers and they would be investigating them further.
“We are pleading with members of the public not to play around with the 917 Police Emergency Lines as people who need assistance depend on it.”
