Four suspended

By REBECCA KUKU
GOVERNMENT yesterday suspended the Police Commissioner, Treasury, Finance, and Department of Personnel Management Secretaries, and declared a state of emergency to restore order in Port Moresby, Lae and other centres touched by violence.
Prime Minister James Marape announced the two-week state of emergency yesterday after it was approved by the National Executive Council.
The Government action comes after shops have been set on fire, looted, citizens attacked, robbed and assaulted, with nine confirmed dead so far, from gun wounds after police stopped work to seek answers on why their pay was cut.
Businesses lost millions of kina and an estimated 5,000 Papua New Guineans, will be unemployed as a result.
Marape said that with the suspension of David Manning as Police Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner Donald Yamasombie would be acting Police Commissioner.
He will be the controller of the state of emergency, with Samson Kua appointed as acting Deputy Commissioner, Operations.
“Treasury Secretary Andrew Oaeke, Finance Secretary Samuel Penias and Department of Personnel Management Secretary Taies Sansan are all suspended for two weeks, their deputies will be carried out by acting secretaries for the next two weeks as a full investigation is carried out to establish what went wrong,” Marape said.
“There will also be a criminal investigation carried out into the conduct of some members of Police in the Nation’s Capital, I saw some of these videos online, and it’s just shameful how Police just stood there and told people they could loot the shops till 10pm in the night,”
“When you joined the police, you swore an oath, this is not the first time we’ve had police gone rogue, and we cannot tolerate such behaviour. “Your concerns were genuine, and there are pathways for you to raise those concerns,” he said.
Marape said that he was tasking Yamasombie to restore order in the Nation’s Capital and command and control back into the constabulary.
“I also thank all members of Police across the country, thank you for stepping up, for ensuring that the chaos did not continue on to the provinces.
“We have the Northern Mobile Group and the Highlands Mobile Squad already on the ground, we have 1,000 soldiers on standby who will enforce the two week state of emergency as we restore order and normalcy to Port Moresby,” he said.