Governor queries 400 police vacancies

HELA has only 60 police officers looking after the province, and is ready to support filling the 400-plus police positions being planned, says Governor Philip Undialu.
Undialu told the governors’ consultative meeting in Port Moresby this week that the provincial police structure was approved in 2020 but not funded until this year.
In 2020, the Personnel Management Department approved a provincial police structure of 535 police constables.
But those police positions were yet to be filled.
Deputy police commissioner, administration, Joan Clarkson and Personnel Management Department secretary Taies Sansan visited Hela this year and said they had finally funded 479 police positions.
Undialu said the next challenge now was recruitment.
“We currently have just 60 policemen on the ground, providing policing services for the whole province and it is not enough,” he said.
“Hela is ready to give its support towards the Government and the constabulary.
“We are ready to offer our support in various ways which would include building more police quarters, providing more vehicles and other logistics support as well as funding the recruitment and training of police officers and reservists.”
Undialu said that they already had about 100 accommodation spaces and planned to build more.
“We also plan to buy additional police vehicles to support the police on the ground,” he said.
Undialu also called on the police commissioner David Manning to form a special team which would be dedicated to policing in Hela.
“It took us 10 years to get the structure approved and three years to get it funded,” he said.
“And the Hela government is now fully committed to seeing iut through that all these 400 plus police positions were filled.”