OCTOBER 11, 2022
THE Marape Government is addressing law-and-order in the country in a holistic manner by working at boosting force strength, training, and putting some control on movement into urban centres and public space, Prime Minister Hon. James Marape said today in Parliament.
This will begin next year with a “serious allocation” to Police to boost training, patrolling, discipline and all aspects needed to improve policing in the country, he said.
PM Marape said his Government was now stepping away from the usual “piecemeal approach” to “reorder our society”, demonstrating the seriousness it has about the law-and-order situation in the country.
This, the Prime Minister said, begins next year during which the Government will conduct a massive comprehensive National Census that the police would also use to extrapolate data to pinpoint problem areas to boost policing in the country.
“As we come to budget-proper next year, there will be some serious allocation to police especially in police training and the Internal Security Minister has issued good instructions to the Police Commissioner for basic police patrols, discipline, parades and what else is needed,” he said.
“Immediately, next year, when we do Census-proper, we will take stock of the population and have ID-based knowledge of everyone in the country to assist police to pinpoint those who cause problems, those we can easily identify.
“Some of these measures will include people who migrate into urban areas – they must have reason to migrate. We must know where your address is in the city.
“We will reorder our society for people moving around, so these are the conversations that we are currently having. There must be accountability for those who are moving in and out, those who are working.
“As a government, we want to put our finger on the pulse and contain these problems immediately. Over many years over the past, these law-and-order problems were being treated on piecemeal basis.
“Everyone must have ID card for you to vote, travel, get a job, open a bank account, buy an Air Niugini ticket. We want to know everyone. We want to know who you are, your address. Enough of too much moving in and out; there must be some element of control in our public spaces so we account for everyone.
“Our government is very serious about law-and-order as indicated in the manner in which we have restructured our portfolio. We brought in Police and CIS under one minister to make sure that the left and right hand of law enforcement is made easier.
“Our law-and-order problems have been happening over the last 30 years due to rural-urban migration.
“But we will not be attending to this in a cut-and-paste, piecemeal approach anymore. We are stepping back and addressing this holistically.
“We have given instruction for police recruitment to take place starting next year onwards so we get police numbers up to 10,000 in the next 10 years.
“At the moment our police force has a strength of around 6,000. If you look at our population, this is not good.”
Photograph: PM Marape in Parliament today, discussing government plans to boost policing beginning in next year’s budget. PM Marape is also the minister responsible for planning. Credit: National Parliament Media Unit.