The Minister for Police, National Security and Correctional Services, the Hon. Moses Garu is today leading the Solomon Islands Delegation to the 3rd Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) Police Minister’s Meeting in Kokopo, East New Britain, Papua New Guinea.
The delegation comprises of the Commissioner of Police Matthew Varley, Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Police, National Security and Correctional Services Karen Galokale, the Solomon Islands High Commissioner to Papua New Guinea Barnabas Anga and Chief of Staff to the RSIPF Commissioner Evelyn Thugea.
The annual MSG Police Minister’s Meeting is preceded by the MSG Police Commissioner’s Conference, which took place yesterday 30 April 2018.
The Police Ministers and Commissioners from Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Solomon Islands gathered to discuss important security issues affecting MSG countries. The Chief of the Indonesian National Police also attended the meeting because Indonesia is an Associate Member of the MSG.
Minister Garu officially handed over chairmanship of the MSG Police Minister’s Meeting to the Papua New Guinea Minister for Police, the Hon. Jelta Wong, after Solomon Islands held the chair role for the past two years.
Minister Garu says: “The Police Ministers and Commissioners discussed a range of initiatives currently underway to advance security cooperation between the MSG countries. This includes the ongoing development of Regional Security Strategy for MSG member countries which will identify security challenges facing the region and provide a framework for enhanced security and police cooperation. Additionally, Fiji provided an update on the development of a proposed MSG Regional Police Academy, which is forecasted to be located in Fiji and intended to provide coordinated and specialised police training courses to benefit all members. This will not replace each country’s own Academy but complement them through building a more cooperative approach to specialised training and leadership development across police forces.”
“Furthermore, Solomon Islands was updated on the security preparations Papua New Guinea is currently undertaking to prepare for the upcoming APEC meeting in Port Moresby later this year. I have offered to my counterpart in PNG that our respective Police Commissioners will undertake close consultations on how the RSIPF can develop a police to police assistance package to support the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary during the APEC summit. This may eventually include the deployment of some specialist RSIPF officers to PNG to undertake specialist liaison tasks in areas where we have expertise and specialised capabilities,” explains Minister Garu.
Following the Ministerial Meeting, the Solomon Islands delegation also conducted a bilateral meeting with the Commissioner of the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary (RPNGC), Mr Gary Baki.
“The operational police relationship between RSIPF and RPNGC is a very important one,” says Commissioner Matthew Varley. “We discussed and agreed to work more closely together on issues affecting the security of our common border between Solomon Islands and Bougainville as well as ways in which RSIPF could assist RPNGC in security preparations for APEC. In particular, the RSIPF offered to assist RPNGC with specialised training for their officers in the lead up to APEC. Commissioner Baki was grateful for the offer and for the good partnership that already exists between our police forces.”
“I also invited Commissioner Baki to visit Honiara in June to further advance our cooperation. We are both hopeful that this will provide us with an opportunity to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between our police forces which will cover areas where we can share intelligence on transnational crime and cooperate to address common threats against the national security of both countries,” Commissioner Varley explains.