Govt pays first instalment of police insurance cover

The National National

By JACKLYN SIRIAS
THE government has heeded the Police Union’s call to pay the first instalment of a K9 million insurance cover for police officers and their spouses.
A cheque of K3.3 million that they received last week was presented to Life Insurance Corporation Ltd that takes care of the Police Department insurance. The cheque was given on Friday at police headquarters in Port Moresby. Union president Lowa Tambua said the State would pay the next K6 million before the year ended.
“These money would go to meet the insurance needs of 42 officers and their spouses who passed away in the years from 2016 through to this year,” he said.
Tambua said the government annually budgeted around K5 million to cater for insurance needs for police officers and their spouses.
“This year they had to pay K9 million because we have had outstanding payments for our officers and their spouses who had died since 2016,” Tambua said.
The insurance group chief executive Ure Rauka said their insurance company had to cater for funeral expenses for some of those officers.
“So with these payments, part of them would go to cover those outstanding from the last two years and to cater for this year until December,” he said. Deputy commissioner administration Raphael Huafolo said it was important for the welfare of their members and families.
“We have been having serious financial problems to continue to fund on an annual basis the insurance needs for our members,” he said.
Huafolo said they understood the fiscal issues the country was faced with but the positive note on the insurance cover payment would enable them to re-engage with insurance company to look after insurance issues for their members.
He said according to their human resource records, more than 30 people had died this year.
“As the organisation is growing with an increase of human resource, we see the rate of people passing on increasing at a very high level each year. So, this is a worrying issue for the management of this department.”