Training for traffic officers pushed

LACK of training is affecting the performance of traffic officers in the country, a top official says.
“Training for traffic police officers for the last 15 to 20 years has not been conducted,” director traffic operations Joseph Joe told The National last Friday.
Earlier, he told a group of officers during their parade at the Boroko traffic station that lack of training had impacted the performance of officers in a big way.
“There is no basic training for traffic in the recruitment programme for the new police recruits,” he said.
Joe said because of that, many traffic officers lacked the skills and knowledge in the department.
He noted that traffic officers had the tendency to invent their own ways of carrying out their duties.
“This has impacted very badly in terms of their performance and skills and so many complaints have been coming from the general public,” he said.
“I realised that your capacity as officers to carry out duties has been lacking, so I want to make sure you all are equipped in terms of your capacity, resources and everything.”
To address the issues, Joe said they were designing a training programme to start early next year..
“We want to revive training for you training officers and as a matter of fact, we have designed the budget already,” Joe told the officers.