Police want more reservists within corporations

By DYLAN MURRAY
POLICE are hoping to have more reserve officers within corporations, says commissioner David Manning.

“There is a lot of benefit to establishing reserve units in corporations,” he said.
Manning said that it increased police presence in certain parts of the country and helped by adding to security of the corporations like New Britain Palm Oil Ltd (NBPOL) that had 80 trained reserve officers who were employed with them, as well as the surrounding areas.
NBPOL country manager Robert Nilkare said they had 80 security staff at present trained as reserve officers.
He said they normally tried to maintain an even 100 personnel.
Nilkare said the 80 were part of their in-house security and were, therefore, on their payroll.
He also argued that more security personnel should be trained as reserve police officers to be dispatched when there was an issue in the area, especially in areas like Bialla which was seeing a crime surge.
He proposed the idea of police reservist training being funded by the private sector.
“This needs a Government partnership policy that outlines how private investors can interact with the police,” he said.
Manning said reservists had been given more active roles since last year during the elections and then during New Year operations.
He said increasing the number of reserve officers was definitely something they were looking into.
“We are trying to build numbers to 20,000 to 25,000 in the next 10 to 12 years,” he said.
Manning said boosting numbers would help address challenges in remote parts of the country but that they were in need of infrastructure.
“Very little new infrastructure has been built since Independence,” he said.