PNG urged to watch borders

TRANSNATIONAL crime is an ongoing concern in the coastal and border areas of Papua New Guinea, United States Ambassador Teddy Taylor said.
He was speaking during a meeting with the East New Britain government last Wednesday amid concerns the province was now immune to transnational crimes.
Taylor said the country had a lot of coastal areas that needed patrolling and anytime there
were large unpatrolled areas, the province and country was vulnerable to transnational crimes.
He said Papua New Guinea had major ports which met international standards and when it came to detection and inspection, the country took its own steps at its own natural ports to try and avoid such issues.
Taylor said the border near Indonesia was the poorest area that allowed for gun trafficking and any kind of criminal activity.
He said the recent Operation Sunset Merona in Vanimo involving Papua New Guinea Defence Force, police and customs was a good step forward in trying to handle and manage transnational crimes.
“You cannot stop it all but you have to make yourself a hard enough target that the criminal elements want to go somewhere else,” he said.
Taylor said criminal elements would begin to look elsewhere if checkpoints were tough showing the country
was a step ahead of them.
He said fortunately, PNG was a communal country where clans, tribes and families could automatically
tell if there was somebody strange in the village.
However, the ambassador said it was evident that the national government was always concerned and showed responsibility under the PNG constitution to be deal with transnational crimes the best way it could.