More homes for police
The National, Monday April 7th, 2014
By MALUM NALU
PRIME Minister Peter O’Neill has promised more and better homes for police officers as he launched a K49 million housing project outside Port Moresby last Saturday.
The 150 homes for police officers will be built at Bomana by the Saudi Arabian company Red Sea Housing. The company plans to complete the three-bedroom homes in 10 months.
O’Neill said another 150 police homes would be built after that.
“We will continue to build homes – we will add another 150 on the completionof this first 150,” he said.
“Our aim, in one way or another, is to try and have the contractor not leave the project site. We will try to find the funding and have the contractor
continue to build houses so that we can accommodate all our policemen and women.”
He said the Government planned to double the number of police officers before 2017.
“As part of the welfare support for police, we recently increased the salary packages of policemen and women,” he said.
“No country in the world can prosper without having a safe society. That is why the role of police and the disciplined forces throughout our government agencies are very important.
“We must grow our police force.
“We have a very fast growing population and we cannot continue to neglect our police.”
O’Neill was joined by Police Minister Robert Atiyafa, Commissioner Tom Kulunga, Red Sea Housing chairman Abdullah Ali Al Dabbagh, retiring CEO Don Sumner and his successor Joseph Vecchiolla.