Kulunga: Police need help

ACTING Police Commissioner Tom Kulunga has admitted law and order in the country is a very serious problem and under-funding of the department over many years has left police unable to sufficiently deal with it.
Kulunga was speaking in Lae yesterday at the signing of a MoA with the Morobe provincial government for the establishment of a police task force for the province.
He said police responsibility in the law and order sector was a vital in terms of preventing and policing under the Constitution “but what has happened was that the government has failed to sufficiently fund over many years and we have always been under-funded and under-resourced”.
“With patrol vehicles allowed only 30 litres of fuel per day and administration vehicles allowed the same quantity twice a week, mobility is severely restricted.”
He said the workforce had a problem in that there was a wide gap between older and experienced officers and younger members.
He said 1,000 new recruits should be enrolled each year but only 200 had been recruited this year.
“This country has gone to the dogs. And the time to address the problem is now.”
Kulunga said team work was needed to solve the problem and it needed the government and provincial governments and leadership at all levels to help.
He said law and order started with the family unit but many parents had neglected their children and they, in turn, “are growing up unsupervised and on the streets”.
He said these problems applied to everybody and “leadership can do so much and can only take some of the blame”.
Kulunga, who spent seven years in Lae as Northern divisional police commander, said this was the first time the department was signing a MoA with a provincial government to facilitate the funding of such a taskforce.
He said the first police task force was established in Lae when he was regional police chief and the idea soon found favour in other provinces.
He said the new task force specifically to cater for outside of Lae was another new policing concept initiated by the province.
He said police in Lae and Morobe had always enjoyed a good working relationship and received help from the Lae Chamber of Commerce and the provincial government.