Issues of police and the greater Law & Justice sector dominated the Coalition Leaders’ Meeting late into the night of Thursday, 07 November 2024 when government leaders met to initiate discussions on the 2025 National Budget.
Agreeing to put a greater focus on Law & Justice sector in general and Police in particular, Treasurer Hon. Ian Ling-Stuckey said to theme the 2025 budget a “Secure PNG 2025”, with more funding support being looked into for the Roya PNG Constabulary.
This came after Minister for Police, Hon. Peter Tsiamalili gave a sobering run- down on the capability of the RPNG and the huge challenges it is facing at the moment, with the leaders – especially governors – expressing grave concerns on Law & Order in their respective provinces and cities.
Issues that came to the fore include shortfall in manpower, shortfall in funding, lack of housing, lack of maintenance of police housing, police command and control, lack of knowledge on basic processing of criminals, and threats of transnational and cyber-crimes.
Minister Tsiamalili pointed out RPNGC has capacity for 13415 positions but only 6227positions are occupied, making it one policeman serving every 1600 people in PNG when the average global ratio is one policeman to 450 people.
“We have a huge shortfall in police manpower,” he said.
The immediate intervention, Mr Tsiamalili highlighted, is to continue passing out recruits through Bomana Police College (BTC) to get police capacity up by 500 by next year 2025. He confirmed 300 new recruits have already been trained and have joined the Force.
Under the PNG-Australia Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA), Australia has agreed to help PNG increase this further to 1000, with enabling work already started in Mt Hagen, Port Moresby, Kokopo and at BTC, which will also extend to Correctional Services to improve prisons, said the Police Minister.
Also under the BSA, Australia would assist channel in Commonwealth Officers who will take up positions at the senior policing level beginning in Enga Province. This project will be funded by Australia and spearheaded by the Australian Federal Police through which these experienced former or serving police officers will come from Commonwealth countries to help PNG police.
Mr Tsiamalili said to trial the Commonwealth policing project out, five director level positions heading Prosecutions, Internal Affairs, Investigations, Traffic and Fraud would be taken up by the Commonwealth officers as a pilot project in Enga to provide police leadership in the province and the Western End (Enga, Southern Highlands and Hela provinces). The pilot project is supported by Enga Governor Hon. Sir Peter Ipatas who wants a specific approach tailored to tar- get Law & Order in his province.
“With so many flaring situations across the country, we have to act quickly to address what is lacking within the force both administratively and operationally,” he said.
Additionally, a special police unit of 100 men, called Kumul 23, has already been assembled and is currently in training, revealed the Minister. This force will have access to land, sea and air, and will take its power from the anti-terrorism law – if the bill is passed – where the unit will be deployed immediately to address outbursts of unrest in the country. A barracks is being built to reside the members of this special team.
Another solution the Government is seriously considering is creating a bigger arm of police reservists targeting community policing which becomes the pool for police recruitment into the future.
The leaders have been urged to work within their provinces by involving churches to streamline candidates to recruitment stage to strengthen ethics, behaviour and conduct in the force.
Minister Tsiamalili also highlighted RPNGC getting into using Information Communication Technology and the use of AI to improve on arrests and prosecutions.
The Coalition Leaders’ meeting was presided over by Prime Minister Hon. James Marape and Deputy Prime Minister Hon. John Rosso, and coordinated by Chief Secretary Ivan Pomaleu.
Discussions on police improvements are continuing as the coalition leaders prepare for a few more Cabinet meetings before Parliament sits at the end of this month before the close of this year 2024.