Address petty crimes in Lae

Letters

MOROBE experienced its worst recorded ethnic clash in November, 2011, in Lae between Morobe and the Highlands people.
The clash resulted in a number of deaths and destruction to properties.
Businesses in Lae lost properties worth millions of kinas and the city became a ghost town.
With that particular situation, the Morobe government and Lae city authority need to develop a law and order strategy on how they can deal with petty crimes and to wait until situations escalate.
Recently, there was an arrest of 75 people involved in petty crimes.
This should not happen, the people in Lae deserve to live in peace without fear.
With a similar situation in 2011, a peace negotiation committee came into play through an urgent provincial executive council meeting and a decision was made for the establishment of that committee to immediately address the unrest with the support from the Government at that time.
We don’t want to repeat ourselves and the Morobe government need to take this matter as one of its priority and develop some strategies to address it.
Do not, as always, leave it to the police to deal with it.
Many people have now moved to Lae and are illegally settling in areas and have outgrown the already-shrinking suburbs in Lae.
People are building houses illegally on both state and customary lands and it is a concern for the government to make an effort to deal with it.
The trend of illegally occupying state land is evident especially in Lae and in other neighbouring districts within Nawaeb and Huon Gulf that the Lands division in Morobe should have a look at that.
The settlements are putting a strain on government services and are a hindrance to socio-economic development in the city.
These settlements are breeding illegal activities as well.
The environment is conducive for drug and home brew trade.
There is illegal operation of liquor shops.
Gambling and prostitution are a common sight in these settlements.
The onus is on the Morobe government to prioritise these issues which has affected Lae city residents.
The sooner we address it the better.
We cannot have another clash such as the one in 2011.

Observer
Lae