Law, order a huge problem

LAW and order in Port Moresby, which is host to the country’s diverse ethnic groupings, is a critical issue for the government and city authorities to deal with.
Not a week goes by that we do not hear of young people getting into trouble with the police over alcohol and drug-related offences.
Occasionally, we get reports of tragedies that resulted from illicit drug and alcohol abuse.
The capital city of PNG has an estimated population of 1.2 million people.
Over the weekend, Port Moresby witnessed a clash between police and settlers at Erima which saw two people dead, several people (policemen and civilians) injured and damages to vehicles.
The clash is alleged to be between police and a certain ethnic group. While we share with the settler’s on their frustration regarding the heavy handed tactics allegedly used by police, let’s remember that the National Capital District does not belong to any one ethnic group.
Police in NCD are faced with a lot of challenges with the high number of unemployed people flooding in from other provinces.
Unplanned settlements are increasing at an alarming rate and if not contained will pose a serious law and order challenge for the NCD police.
The youth of settlements and some suburbs dwell in an environment that is conducive to crime and lawlessness.
Crime is intoxicating for many of them and like a drug, it becomes an escape route for their miserable existence.
Relevant authorities need to clamp down and step its authority and law and order and creation of hamlets at will.
The trend seems to go along this path, ‘I build my house on a vacant land and when the rightful owners want to develop the land, I put up a fight and say I have been living there for donkey years and I now call on the government to find me an alternate land to settle on otherwise meet my repatriation cost to my home province’.
This is becoming a typical scenario in PNG.
In the absence of policing the people have tended to start up and settle in parts of the city in their own regional or language groupings.
We are starting to see the effects of over population and overcrowding in the major urban centres of the country.
What many Papua New Guineans are ignorant or unaware of is that if people continue to flood into the urban settings and city planners, provincial and national governments do little in the way of planning to change the trend then those places will reach saturation point where anarchy, mayhem and chaos will reign.
It is not uncommon for violent clashes between ethnic groups to break out.
Port Moresby, Lae, Madang and Mt Hagen have all borne the brunt of them.
The country quite simply needs an urbanisation policy that deals specifically with this issue.
Urbanisation means turning a place or places into urban centres complete with the prerequisite services and amenities.
We obviously need more cities and towns to provide what the top three urban centres are currently being required to do.
This is a way to develop the country and keep the population evenly distributed so that every citizen can have access to goods and services that are now not easily within reach.
Any clashes basically threatens the fundamentals of unity.
It undermines Christian principles and gives the lie to the notions of loving abiding citizenry and respect for self and others.