ICAC new Commissioner Andrew Forbes has expressed that the top priority for the organization at the moment would be for the setting up of the office and building relations with key partners. He said this following the swearing in of the Inaugural Independent Commission Against Corruption Commissioners this morning by the Governor General, Bob Dadae at the Government House in Port Moresby. He said that ensuring relevant policies are set up in the workplace and establish working relationships with various government departments are pivotal to the running of the organization, especially during the initial stages. “One of the first thing that we must do is just a very basic set up within the office, help ensure policies in place and things like that.” “The other high priority is that we do have to work alongside the Police, DPP and meeting with those agencies are critical.” In terms of staffing, Commissioner Forbes said it will be a little time before they start working upon investigations and so on as they are still working with a little number of personnel so building staff numbers is something that they will be looking at to ensure they have the capability to commence investigations. “The first ambition is to have about 85 staff within the office, it’s going to be dependent on how well we go with funding and so on.” “In a perfect world we would have twice as many but it’s a bit hard to be definitive.” Forbes stated that they will be looking to achieve this by the end of this year. “As the country may well be aware, funding has always been an issue for government organizations particularly for those in law enforcement and we can only hope that the Government can make sure to adequately fund the ICAC if they are serious about clamping down on corruption.”