BY INDY MAEALASIA
HONIARA City Council (HCC) is planning on enforcing its Honiara City (Amendment)(No.2) Act 2023 by next week.
HCC Acting City Clerk, Jefferson Patovaki announced this to the public during the SOL2023 talk back show held at SIBC on Sunday.
Patovaki said they have proposed on enforcing the act on the 23rd or 24th of this month.
“The task force that is jointly organised by the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Honiara City Council have proposed 23rd or 24th to commencement the Amendment act (No.2)” he said.
He explained that commencing the act is important as it gives certain actual powers to HCC law enforcement officers.
“The significant commencement of the act gives our law enforcers more powers that is similar to the power RSIPF currently have,” he said.
“It means our law enforcers can now once the act commenced, they can search you, they can arrest you and detain you if they are suspicious of those selling betelnut and all these.”
So far HCC’s first cohort of 30 law enforcements officers are undergoing three weeks of training with the RSIPF in preparation to enforce the act.
HCC legal officer, Paul Inifiri explained that the delay of enforcing the act was due to the need for law enforcement officers to undergo professionally training.
In regards to the betelnut ordinance, litter ordinance, Market ordinance and Dog Ordinance, Inifiri said they are still with the legal draft team of the Attorney General’s chambers and will be gazetted before the end of the month.
