{"id":1029885,"date":"2023-03-19T00:05:05","date_gmt":"2023-03-19T00:05:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/?p=86117"},"modified":"2023-03-19T00:05:05","modified_gmt":"2023-03-19T00:05:05","slug":"sleepless-nights-admits-pngs-security-minister-over-stretched-police","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/03\/19\/sleepless-nights-admits-pngs-security-minister-over-stretched-police\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Sleepless nights\u2019 admits PNG\u2019s security minister over stretched police"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>By Miriam Zarriga in Port Moresby<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Papua New Guinea&#8217;s Internal Security Minister Peter Tsiamalili Jr says the Royal PNG Constabulary is &#8220;stretched&#8221; with only 5000 men and women serving the country of more than 9 million people.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow more than ever we need leadership, we are stretched as a force, we all know that &#8212; we only have 5000 men,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are making recruitments happen.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/2023\/02\/27\/two-countries-two-kidnappings-but-jakarta-and-port-moresby-responses-different-with-3-hostages-freed\/\"><strong>READ MORE:\u00a0<\/strong> Two countries, two kidnappings \u2013 Port Moresby shows Jakarta how it\u2019s done with 3 PNG hostages freed<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.benarnews.org\/english\/news\/pacific\/sexual-violence-03122023233850.html\">Photo of naked girl with captors causes furore in Papua New Guinea<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/?s=PNG+crime\">Other PNG crime reports<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/?s=Hela+crime\">Issues in Hela<\/a> &#8212; we are making every effort to manage this.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That is happening in Hela, and it\u2019s across the country. I am asking for help. This issue did not happen overnight, this is a culmination of the neglect our force has faced in the last 10 to 15 years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am having sleepless nights, ensuring we work with the operational side of police. We are looking at stronger laws to deter citizens of such criminal acts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The minister &#8212; who is in charge of both the police and correctional services &#8212; was speaking during Parliament when he was asked by Mul-Baiyer MP Jacob Maki and a supplementary question from Abau MP Sir Puka Temu.<\/p>\n<p>They questioned the minister on law and order issues over the latest crimes committed &#8212; in particular the alleged <a href=\"https:\/\/www.benarnews.org\/english\/news\/pacific\/sexual-violence-03122023233850.html\">rape of a 15-year-old girl in Hela<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/2023\/02\/27\/two-countries-two-kidnappings-but-jakarta-and-port-moresby-responses-different-with-3-hostages-freed\/\">kidnapping of researchers<\/a> in Southern Highlands.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Suspects on social media<\/strong><br \/>\nSir Puka said the rise in the use of social media had enabled many to see pictures of the suspects posted on media platforms.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have seen the faces of criminals being posted and what is police doing about it?\u201d Sir Puka asked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCitizens are using the platform of social media to put out those criminal behaviours.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The minister said police were working on the issue.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn terms of the prosecution of those exposed, we have a cybercrime office and team, working on prosecution, there are processes in place,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPolice have taken action and it is a process that will take place.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Miriam Zarriga<\/em> <em>is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"syndicated-attribution\">This post was originally published on <a href=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/2023\/03\/19\/sleepless-nights-admits-pngs-security-minister-over-stretched-police\/\">Asia Pacific Report<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Miriam Zarriga in Port Moresby Papua New Guinea\u2019s Internal Security Minister Peter Tsiamalili Jr says the Royal PNG Constabulary is \u201cstretched\u201d with only 5000 men and women serving the country of more than 9 million people. \u201cNow more than ever we need leadership, we are stretched as a force, we all know that \u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":400,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[362,5,36675,53887,118,8538,12,366,58784,23420,3146,13,14,1495,417,49890,1743],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1029885"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/400"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1029885"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1029885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1029886,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1029885\/revisions\/1029886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1029885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1029885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1029885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}