New police station to be built in Tari to fight crime

A POLICE station is to be built near the Ambua Lodge area in Tari, Southern Highlands province.
The move is aimed at curbing criminal activities along the highway, especially near the Tari Gap section of the Highlands Highway.
Komo-Margarima MP Francis Potape said a new police highway patrol unit 20 would be built with policemen to be based near the Ambua Lodge.
Mr Potape and provincial police commander Supt Jimmy Onopia made a site tour of Kuyali village, situated a few kilometres downhill Ambua Lodge on the Mendi-Tari section of the highway where the new police unit would be built.
The land is to be identified and surveyed soon.
Mr Potape said he had secured K1.5 million for the construction of police staff houses, an office block, a rural lock-up and other infrastructures needed to sustain the police unit.
He said the new unit would patrol the Tari-Ambua-Margarima and Mendi sections of the highway to ensure that it was free from all lawless activities.
Police presence would provide safe passage for hauling companies ferrying materials, equipment and machines for the multi-billion PNG LNG project.
The new unit would also patrol the proposed Homa-Tari Highway linking Tari, Beneria and Lake Kutubu.
Supt Onopia said as soon as the police base was built, 16 policemen would move in and be based permanently there.
He said with the new highway 20 base, second police mobile squad unit at Pai in Tari and new police houses being built at Koroba, Komo, Margarima and other districts in the province, he was confident that there would be enough manpower to contain lawlessness in the province.