Government is working on drafting a series of new laws that will enable the National Counter Narcotics Bureau to carry out their work in tandem with the police.
While speaking on The Lens@177 this week, Home Affairs Minister Pio Tikoduadua said at the moment, members of the bureau worked with police to do their work.
Mr Tikoduadua said they needed to establish this properly, so the laws were being put together “very quickly”.
In addition, Mr Tikoduadua said they were not reinventing the wheel as there were jurisdictions they were learning from, and how to make this work.
“They are covered in the work that they do because it’s still what the police does, however, because this is an entirely new department of Government, the laws have to be written to make sure they work,” he said.
“We have to allow them to be able to do their work, unfortunately, some of their work is sensitive.
“There are things that we can’t openly talk about at this point, because their work entails a lot of information gathering only. We use the powers that are available to the police now to do it.”
Mr Tikoduadua said his ministry and the Office of the Solicitor General was working with experts to be able to have a set of laws dedicated to allow the counter narcotics bureau to do their work effectively and for them to be accountable too.
