Police want better pay for officers

By JACKLYN SIRIAS
THE Royal PNG Constabulary and the Police Union yesterday signed an agreement for the Government to increase salaries of police officers by three per cent next year, according to an official.
Police Union general secretary Clemence Kanau told The National that the agreement also covered outstanding allowances and service fees amounting to K60 million the Government owed to members of the constabulary since 2006.
“This signing ceremony has been delayed for a year not by our intention but for a reason,” he said.
Kanau said through the police commissioner, the Personnel Management Department and the chief secretary, the union submitted to the Government their call for an increase in pay.
“We did ask for a little bit more than the three per cent that they offered to all public servants in the country based on the reason that our police officers throughout the country were used excessively and continued to be used in all major events, all national call-outs, international call-outs,” Kanau said.
“We still have one or two more major events coming to our shores and we all know that the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (summit) is one.
“But because we understand that the country has a tight fiscal situation, we do not want to go barking to the Government so we adopted the approach of a win-win situation by signing this agreement.”
Kanau said another aspect of the agreement was the allowance component.
“When we started signing off the first agreement in 2006, the service allowance that we had was eight per cent,” he said.
“Over the years, it has increased and today, we are at 12 per cent, which is a significant increase in allowances paid to all ranks and files.”