Police short of resources

 By BENNY GETENG

POLICE in the Telefomin district of West Sepik depend on air transport to investigate cases in the electorate.

Telefomin rural police station commander Snr Const Terry Dap said it usually took “a long time” to attend to cases in the four LLGs because of irregular flights to the remote areas.

“There are a lot of reported cases coming in but we can’t attend to them unless there is a flight to take us to the locations,” he said. 

“We have to wait for third-level  flights from Kiunga, Vanimo or Wewak. We can then hitch a ride to the outer parts to attend the cases.

“This may take days after the cases are reported to us and after investigations, it may take weeks before we can go back and make arrests.

“We are also actually short on resources and manpower, making it very difficult to maintain the law.”

He said the current ratio was one officer to 20,000 people.

Telefomin shares a border with East Sepik, Western, Enga and the international border with Indonesia.

“We also have many reports coming in of illegal arms trafficking and illegal border crosses but we cannot attend to these because of our current situation.

Dap urged the provincial and national governments to address the matter as crime was increasing.

“I am appealing to the police hierarchy and provincial authorities to look into proper funding of rural police stations like Telefomin.”