Increase in crime a grave concern for city, says governor

THE city needs more police to contain and prevent crimes or respond to them, National Capital District Governor Powes Parkop says.
Responding to recent claims of kidnapping and a surge in crime in the city, Parkop,said while they continued to support programmes and initiatives that contributed to building a vibrant, active and safe city, the increase in crime was a grave concern.
Parkop wants residents to take precautions as the municipal leadership was “trying very hard to get down to the bottom of the issue”.
“I urge all city residents to take precautions as we try to get to the bottom of this issue, and ask that citizens to come forward to the police with any reliable information on criminal activities in your area,” he said.
“Let’s all make Port Moresby a safe city for our families and our communities.”
Parkop said the NCDC had been working hard to keep the city safe, especially for women and girls, through various community enhancement initiatives.
These include the Active City Development Programme, Urban Youth Employment, Tvet, Skills Training with Ginigoada, sports, Meri Seif buses and many others that directly and indirectly addressed issues of unemployment, behaviour changes, idleness, education, skills training, self-esteem, cleanliness, peace and security in the city.
These have seen transformative outcomes, Parkop said.
“We also work with international aid agencies and NGOs on various programmes and trying our best to create an environment where investments and businesses can grow, so employment can be created,” he said.
“I have called on the minister and commissioner for police to increase the manpower capacity of the Police in NCD.
“I have also gone to the extent of writing to the prime minister in proposing an interim measure to allow Australian Federal Police (AFP) to support our capacity in the city until such time where we can train and deploy more of our own policemen and women.”
Parkop said that in the last two decades, police capacity in the city had remained at 800 personnel although its population had increased almost two fold to over a million.
“This has placed severe strains on the capacity of city police to be visible and proactive; and significantly affects their ability to respond to serious and petty crimes let alone contain or deter them,” he said.
“The United Nations recommend a ratio of police per population at 1:400. Given the recent population estimate of 1.2 million people in Port Moresby, our police-population ratio stands at 1:2000+.”
The statistics are unacceptable, Parkop said.
NCDC will be working with police personnel to set up roadblocks throughout the city using trained dogs.
“We are working to improve CCTV capacity in more suburbs and help with CID and police units to track down these kidnappers, and criminal perpetrators and improve our police training and deployment with the help of AFP and international police to boost police presence in public places,” Parkop said.