Combating crime in Papua New Guinea with the help of Australian Federal Police (AFP)

Bringing a hundred police personnel from Australia into Papua New Guinea to address law and order problem is a short term bandage solution to the chronic law and order problem in Papua New Guinea. But it will definitely help public policing by our local police personnel as they did in the past as men (Australian) pleasers and not genuine policing.

Papua New Guinea personnel working alongside their Australian Federal Police (AFP) counterparts, will always try to put up a face to please their foreign friends and not necessarily genuine acts of policing. However the huge sum of Aid money will be directed towards the AFP accommodation, salaries and other logistics needed to do their jobs and only few will be spent on capacity building in the Papua New Guinea Royal Constabulary.

Policing problem in Papua New Guinea is not necessarily in their performance. It is true police in Papua New Guinea collaborate with criminals to facilitate some of very sophisticated crimes we see recently in Papua New Guinea. However these dirty and compromised performance has a deeper cause then just compromised line of duties.

These are problems such as lack of policing infrastructures (e.g. camera surveillance system in strategic public areas including road sides), low salary (when cost of living in the city is increasingly high), poor housing condition (deteriorating barracks), shortage of police personnel etc...All these are clearly identified by the Bire Kimisopa Administration when he was the police minister.

If Canberra is serious about addressing law and order problem in Papua New Guinea then they should directly channel their aid expenditures into these areas and not paying their very own highly paid police force in Papua New Guinea. Just imagine what could a hundred AFP personnel accomplish in Papua New Guinea or say in the four (Port Moresby, Lae, Hagen & Rab) major cities of Papua New Guinea to address the policing problems mentioned briefly above.

We all knew it was the full responsibility of our (PNG) government to address these problems, however history have shown that consistent government have grossly neglected these problems. We have the cash needed to finance sustainable solution to these problems, however poor governance and management and sometimes ill-conceived advises from foreign consultants, have systematically failed us.

I agree AFP can address some problems of policing but this strategy is very lazy and short-term solutions does not reflect the real and lasting solutions to Papua New Guinea policing problems. As usual, Canberra is using its symbolic authority to show the world that she is still the policeman of the South Pacific.

Albert Tobby

Beijing, China

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