MPs told fighting crime must come first

MOROBE’S nine MPs and their district development authorities (DDA) have been urged to make fighting crime their priority — even to put it before service delivery.
Provincial law and order coordinator Francis Masiang said without the enforcement of law and order in the districts, there was no guarantee that service delivered would reach or serve the people.
Masiang took into consideration the number of number of tribal disputes in the districts that the office of provincial law and order had to address.
“The majority of these fights occurred as a result of land disputes, sorcery, cult practices and drug and alcohol abuse,” he said.
He said, according to his record of all districts, Finschhafen had the highest number of fights among the people, while other districts had similar results that needed to be looked at.
“The office of law and order here in the province is working on a programme to address these issues with the help of each DDA and LLG headquarters at the district level, starting mid-next year,”Masiang said.
“The programme targets peace mediation and reconciliation, identifying the cause of the problem and the approaches that each district must take to facilitate land mediation.”
Masiang said the real problem that were delaying their advancement in delivering the programme was funding and asked the nine MPs and DDAs to put in the money and make law and order the priority.
He said currently on record there were more than 20 unresolved tribal fights within the nine districts going back 10 years.