58 to be sent home after paying K300, K500 fines
LAE District Court in a special hearing on Saturday fined 58 people K300 or K500 each in a separate court hearing after finding them guilty of loitering in public places in Lae on Nov 25.
Another eight who appeared on the same offence, pleaded not guilty and had their case adjourned to Dec 11.
Out of the 20 who appeared before Magistrate Nancy Lipai, two pleaded not guilty while the rest pleaded guilty.
Police stated that the 66 people were arrested on Nov 25 for loitering at the Top Town, Main Market and Eriku bus stop areas.
Police said these people roamed these areas every day doing nothing and that had led to the many petty crimes such as pick-pocketing, bag-snatching, harassing and street vending.
Police said people petitioned Lae metropolitan police to act after seeing petty crimes on the rise.
Magistrate Lipai after finding them guilty ordered them to pay K300 fine or face six months in prison.
She ordered that after paying the fine they would be repatriated back to their villages within the next 30 days.
“Those with genuine reasons to stay here in Lae must prove it,” she told the 18 defendants.
“You are all unemployed and are doing nothing here so you are all ordered to go home after paying your fines.”
She told them that if they could not pay the fine, they would serve six months in prison and after serving their terms, they still had to return to their respective home provinces.
Meanwhile, the other 46 who appeared before Magistrate Tera Dawai were fined K500 each.
Deadline for the fine was on Saturday (Nov 28) or they would face six months in jail.
Magistrate Dawai ordered them to be repatriated to their own provinces to serve their jail terms if they cannot pay their fine.
“We have freedom of movement and to do other things but don’t let that right interfere with the rights of another person. That is when you are wrong,” Dawai told the defendants.
All will be repatriated to their home provinces.
The court understands that the Morobe government will be responsible for the repatriation exercise for the defendants.
10 comments
Such lazy people are causing chaos in the city and a lot of law and order issue that leads to rapid increase in the criminal activities…more good repatriate them back to their home province to cultivate their land and sweat their guts to earn a decent honest living with full of blessings..once if they happen to come back and seen roaming nothing around the towns and cities at main bus stops again they might hand up in the jail and spent 5-6 year with hard labour or some other strict policies and measures to control such urban drifting and uncessary migration within png once and for all….
This is a very brilliant initiatives taken by Police in Lae and every one who are beggar’s and and dependents on other people such as fathers and mothers must be repatriated back to their home provinces, They are disturbing the good people who want to live a good enjoyable life. These includes disobedient sons and daughters of parents.
Well done Morobe Police.
It must be the way to deal with such loiters who continue be a menace to the public. Such apprehending and prosecution should take place in all towns across this country. On the other hand, a fairer distribution of development between the rural and urban areas must be made equitable to keep many of our people from coming into towns. Only then number of loiters in urban centres can be reduced.
Very godd work magistrate, please keep it up and send these lazy people to go home and till their land . not living off someone else sweat.
Magistrate Dawai, I want to salute you for your ruling but where did you get that law? Do we have such law in our constitution? Something like that should happen to all centers of PNG to minimize crime. Top decision.
This is the way to go to rid pests and parasites off our major towns and cities.
I suggest a separate court and cell block purposely built to handle and deal with such culprits in multitudes.
I think all urban centers should start to do the same and send unemployed people back to their provinces but first ensure that they are issued with a NID and sent home. That way, it would be easier to identify them if caught again roaming around aimlessly within the same urban center or maybe another. Without a form of ID, it would be hard to keep track of them. Police or the NID office should start to use face recognition systems to help in the identification of such useless people!
Well Done SRU 101,102,103.you guys did a fine job, just a heads up gents,please monitor the BSP ATM next to Eriku Service station. It seems those regular faces are still moving and pretend to join the queue to withdraw funds but infact,they are preying on vulnerable women especially mothers and young ladies from our rural villages in Morobe.
Well Done SRU 101,102,103.you guys did a fine job, just a heads up gents,please monitor the BSP ATM next to Eriku Service station. It seems those regular faces are still moving and pretend to join the queue to withdraw funds but infact,they are preying on vulnerable women especially mothers and young ladies from our rural villages in Morobe.
Good job. Two days ago I was in Lae and noticed that top town, eriku and main hospital areas were generally clean. Noticed unlike before there no more unnecessary people walking around general in top town. Noticed a new beach front but seriously buai sellers must be stopped.
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