Cops told to fight corruption

ACTING Deputy Police Commissioner Fred Yakasa has told anti-fraud officers to do more to fight the increasing number of fraud cases in the country.
Yakasa told a workshop yesterday attended by senior government officers from mainstream agencies dealing with fraud that if they were concerned about the future of children they should do more to weed out corruption and fraud.
He told the gathering at Gateway Hotel that PNG had long suffered from fraud and corruption involving people in high places and it was time people in charge of anti-graft bodies did something serious to change this trend.
“Our own people are stealing money from government accounts, avoiding taxes, bribing politicians and public servants, accepting bribes from foreign business and selling our resources for a fraction of what they are worth,” he said.
Yakasa told the officers that if they continued to ignore this fact and submit to it, then they were encouraging it and would lead to its increase.
He said as anti-graft officers, their reward would be little compared to the work they would be doing and at times they would encounter life-threatening situations but they would have reasons to be proud of for doing something good for the people.
The workshop was attended by officers from the public prosecutors office, national fraud and anti-corruption directorate, police, auditor-general’s office, department of justice and attorney general, Investment Promotion Authority and representatives from financial institutions.
The workshop themed “Proceeds of Crime Workshop” was organised by anti-money laundering assistant team (Amlat) of the department of attorney-general of Australia.
The meeting ends on Friday.