Estonian minister waits from police chief closer integration of organization

Photo: A.Peegel

The new head of the Estonian Police and Border Guard Board is faced with several important challenges the most important of which is integrating the joint department into a whole more than has been the case so far, Interior Minister Ken-Marti Vaher said at the government press conference on Thursday.

"Border guards, law enforcement officers and members of the criminal police should be united into a unified team for solving the most important crimes that are priorities for us, such as drug offenses, close relationship violence or solving the problems that arise through illegal immigration," Vaher said.

He said another challenge was finding a way how to manage the biggest organization in Estonia in a high-quality and efficient manner. "The taxpayer allocates a significant amount of resource to this institution every year and we've already launched a review of the work processes in order to direct more resources toward core operations. We have reduced the share of support activities and adopted technically innovative solutions to direct the resource thus freed to law enforcement and traffic supervision," he said.

Besides the minister listed combating serious hidden crimes and corruption, reducing drug abuse and fighting against serious economic crimes as key challenges for the new chief of the Estonian Police and Border Guard Board.

The government on Thursday appointed Elmar Vaher director general of the Police and Border Guard Board from May 2.

Vaher, born in 1975, has graduated from the Paikuse Police College and the Academy of Security Sciences and is currently pursuing a master's degree in law at Tallinn University. He has previously held various positions in the police including those of chief of the central criminal police in 2005-2008 and chief of police for northern Estonia since 2008.

The director general of the Police and Border Guard Board is appointed into office for a term of five years by parliament at the interior minister's proposal after hearing the opinion of the legal affairs committee.

The previous police chief, Raivo Küüt, tendered his resignation in November in the wake of a scandal over speeding fines issued by officers of the East prefecture based on readings from an uncalibrated speed measuring device and subsequent cover-up of the case.