K3mil to train police recruits

By ELIZABETH VUVU
THE Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary has earmarked K3 million to train new recruits in 2011 to meet the current demand in impact project areas and general policing nationwide.
This K3 million was part of the funding allocated to the Police Department by the government in next year’s budget.
During the three-day commissioners conference in Lae recently, divisional commanders and police commanders were assured by deputy Commissioner of police administration that recruits would undergo a six-month basic recruit training starting with the New Guinea Islands (NGI) region and that would be followed by Momase and Highlands regions.
Almost all divisional commanders and provincial commanders expressed concern with the acute shortage of manpower nationwide as most police personnel were engaged in the LNG projects and other mining areas where the demand was high, leaving the general policing in all police stations throughout the country with almost nothing.
The K3 million funding would go toward training new recruits next year to meet the government’s vision to build up the manpower strength of the constabulary on recruiting more police personnel to meet the current demand in the impact project areas and general policing in PNG.
Acting assistant commissioner of police for NGI, Supt Anthon Billie said he was keen to see the NGI recruits commence training as early as in February.
He also urged those responsible to sort out the administrative process while waiting for the government accounts to be opened.
He said that once the accounts were opened the recruits could fly over to Port Moresby to commence training at Bomana.
Billie said NGI recruits had been waiting patiently and anxiously to commence their training since they went through the selection process conducted by the national recruitment team in March of this year, which was almost nine months ago.
 Some of these recruits had withdrawn from tertiary institutions and colleges and others had resigned from permanent employment as they had been told to prepare to go to Bomana in two weeks time.
But the wait to leave for training turned into months, and they are still waiting to go.
Billie has warned selected recruits in NGI to be ready and not adopt bad habits while waiting as there would be a final screening before recruits were allowed to leave for Bomana to commence training.