Rise in crime reflects lack of true leadership

THE ongoing violence and criminal activities in Papua New Guinea are a terrible reflection on the lack of real leadership by our leaders.
We make excuses for this behaviour by saying these are thousands of years old fights and disputes.
Yet, at the same time, we see modern weapons and we want to be a modern society.
People in Hela have enough high-powered weapons to start a war and they can’t stop fighting.
People from a certain province are fighting in just about every province they are in. It doesn’t matter where they are, they are always fighting someone.
The once beautiful Madang continues to see violence without any sign of it slowing with the disgraceful beheading of a teacher getting off a bus last week.
Every week, we hear about people being killed but nothing gets done about it.
All of these issues are the result of poor leadership in managing the allocation of funding to law and order.
There is poor leadership in educating our people on appropriate behaviour.
There is poor leadership from governors of provinces who can’t get their people to work better together.
Many of our leaders are too focused on their fancy cars and how they want to spend their money.
But not enough of our leaders are saying “enough is enough”.
If we are to become a modern society, if we want to be accepted globally, if we want to make PNG a better place where our people can move safely around without fear, we need strong leaders who are respected and have the right values.
We need to find these leaders and give them a go.
PNG deserves a chance to rid itself of this lawlessness and violence.

Law and Order Advocate