Police to address hotline pranks

National

LAE Metropolitan Superintendent Anthony Wagambie Jr is concerned about the “prank calls” made to police hotline operators which he says will be tracked down.
The toll-free hotline was set up in partnership with Digicel PNG.
“We have been experiencing a lot of prank calls and also (callers) swearing at our operators,” Wagambie said.
“Those numbers (of prank callers) have been listed. It is only a matter of time when all Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) cards are registered, then we will be able to catch those offenders.”
He thanked Digicel for providing the service.
“It comes at great cost to the company but they have done great with the community partnership with police in fighting crime in Lae,” Wagambie said.
Wagambie said the police emergency toll free number in Lae was however being appreciated by the people.
“It has allowed the public to easily reach police,” Wagambie said.
“I have made certain that the radio operations room where all police operations is coordinated from is staffed 24 hours a day with four operators. This is to ensure that the telephone is always answered.”
Wagambie said the introduction of the toll free number had resulted in an increase workload for police officers under his command.
“More people are now reporting incidents ranging from minor cases like drunk and disorderly to major ones,” Wagambie said.
“In the past we were not in contact with the public where they could report incidents to us. So we thought there were not much problems happening.”
Wagambie said the police response time to incidents now was 10 minutes.