Biosecurity policy vital, says official

THE proposed national biosecurity policy will enable Government agencies and private stakeholders to address the import and export of goods in the country, an official says.
National Agriculture Quarantine and Inspection Authority (Naqia) technical and advisory general manager David Tenakanai said inspection and clearance of products or goods in PNG ports were challenging because of human resource issues and lack of collaboration between government and private agencies.
“Naqia has only 74 officers station in ports throughout the country, dealing with inspection and clearance of import and export of products,” Tenakanai said.
“They cannot do the amount of work required to clear all the imports and exports of products.”
Tenakanai said an avenue would be created for collaboration in sharing of resources and ideas to address inspection and clearance through consultations between Government and private agencies.
He said there were confusion between agencies for ports regulations as which agency was actually out there to monitor the ports.