Pacific crime fight needs political will and funding, says Palau minister

Pacific governments must direct funding to the right policing agencies if the region is to effectively tackle transnational organised crime, says Palau’s Minister for Justice Jennifer Olegeriil.

“It needs to start at the top, because that political will drive funding priorities, to go towards improving those areas that need to be improved,” she said.

Ms Olegeriil, a former police officer in Palau, made the comments during a side event held on the margins of the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting in Koror, Palau.

She said investment was needed in equipment, assets, training and capacity building, particularly to improve intelligence sharing.

“Whether that is additional equipment, assets, training, capacity building, to enable improvement in the area of intel sharing, that will not take place unless leaderships put that priority tap on it.”

Ms Olegeriil said while tackling evolving transnational crime threats was seen as police-led work, there were still barriers that hindered an effective response.

“There must be political will, there must be enabled legislations and policies that enable for that funding priority, and it needs to be police then, policing agencies.”

She said a holistic approach was needed to address the problem.

“We can’t talk about drug trafficking and drug use without talking about climate change and how that’s influencing.

“We can’t talk about it without talking about gender equity and social inclusion. We have everybody, I’m not saying that we should burden the police to look at all these things, but everybody must be doing their part.”

Ms Olegeriil said regional leaders acknowledged that transnational crime was the new threat next to climate change for the region, but there was not enough funding or political will to enable an effective response.

“We need to be looking at our education system, we need to be looking at our other social institutions in place, and the police can concentrate on catching the drug dealers with enough funding in a model that is policemen.”