Concerns over delay in structure approval

THE delay by the Department of Personnel Management in approving Jiwaka’s police structure is affecting the force’s output in the province, police commander senior Inspector Kauga Maragil says.
Maragil said most officers in the province still had their positions registered under Wester Highlands.
He said the Police Department had drafted Jiwaka’s police structure and submitted for approval by the Department of Personnel Management.
But that has not been approved to date.
“Jiwaka is still depending on Western Highlands in some areas and currently it is using Western Highlands’ police structure,” Maragil said.
“With law and order issues in the province rising, I need to enforce law and order but that again will depend much on the availability of the province’s police structure.
“We cannot depend on that of Western Highlands to operate on.
“The officers had to have their position numbers based in Jiwaka.”
He said this during the Momase, Highlands and Islands provincial police commanders’ annual budget meeting in Lae, Morobe on Thursday.
Maragil said once the structure was in place, he would look at recruiting more police officers to combat law and order problems.
“Currently, I have 10 police officers in the province,” he said.
“This is nothing compared the population of about 400,000 people in the entire province.”
Maragil said with the new payroll system in place, every police officer needed to be locked into a position.