FIJI: BUSINESSMEN CALL FOR EXPAT POLICE CHIEF

Leading Fiji businessmen are fed up with slackness in the country's post-coup law enforcement and have called for an expatriate police chief - "preferably an Englishman".

By DAVID ROBIE in Suva

LEADING FIJI businessmen are fed up with slackness in the country's post-coup law enforcement and have called for an expatriate police chief - "preferably an Englishman".

Delegates at the Fiji Chamber of Commerce and Industry's annual national convention at the weekend complained bitterly that a local police commissioner could not resist communal pressure.

They believe the appointment of an expatriate at the helm of the police will restore investor confidence and pave the way for economic recovery.

The economy has struggled for the past two years in the wake of rogue timber businessman George Speight's aborted coup on 19 May 2000.

Chamber president Taito Waradi backed a call at the conference by hotelier Radike Qereqeretabua to restore the pre-1970 colonial days when British officers filled the top ranks.

Qereqeretabua said he did not want to put down Police Commissioner Isikia Savua and Prisons Commissioner Aisea Taoka.

"For the police to do the job it's supposed to do, the police commissioner should be an expatriate - preferably an Englishman, because a lot of Fijians still have respect for our colonial friends," he added.

Qereqeretabua was speaking on a panel discussing a secure business environment for Fiji.

Commissioners Savua and Taoka were both implicated by news reports in Speight's coup, although Savua was cleared in closed inquiry findings that were never made public. Now the pair - both former soldiers - are being tipped for a reshuffle with Savua taking a key Fiji diplomatic post overseas and Taoka becoming police commissioner.

Agreeing with Qereqeretabua's view, Waradi said: "One of the biggest problems we are facing is that the commissioner is a local and a Fijian.

"The call of the Fijian is getting in the way of the police commissioner delivering on his responsibilities."

He said contracting an expatriate would go a long way to solving some of the country's lawlessness.

"I don't think we have reached the level of development where we can accept our own people," he said.

"At a conceptual level I would go for a Fijian. But on a practical level you know it won't work."

Opposition Fiji Labour Party spokesman John Ali said Fiji should recruit a professional police commissioner who had expertise to combat modern crimes "infiltrating" the country.

DAVID ROBIE is publisher of Café Pacific