Bird swipes at police, government over tension in ESP

The East Sepik Provincial Government has taken a swipe at the National Government and the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary for the many issues its faced, with and especially now in light of the increased lawlessness in the province.

The province has been rocked with violence, rape, killings and arson in a short span of time in three of its districts of Yangoru Saussia, Angoram and recently Maprik.

Police manpower has been down, and reinforcements had to be brought in from Port Moresby. Provincial MP Allan Bird told NBC’s Morning Tru show today that policing has been a major issue.

“All of the problems that my province is facing right now are all national responsibilities,” Bird said of the current problems in ESP.

“None of them are provincial government responsibilities. Power problems, they're national government responsibilities. Water problems, they're national government responsibilities.

“Managing police, that's national government responsibility. Fixing [0:16] the national highways, that's national government responsibilities.

“All of those are failing in my province. I keep arguing about transferring the powers and transferring the funding so that not just each province, but every single province can be able to take care of these things.

“Suddenly, everything is erupting and they're like, where's the provincial government?”
Mr. Bird also attributed the constant change in provincial police commanders to the increasing lawlessness.

He said the province did not have a PPC for 6 months after Christopher Tamari was transferred to Hela. However, PPC Tamari was recalled attending to this spiraling law and order issues in the province.

“If you look at all our law and order problems, they started escalating the minute command and control in the police was gone.

“You start off with having 120 active policemen already struggling under pressure and then you take away their commander.

“The police are structured like the defense force, they take orders from the top and when those orders are not coming down, when there's no one there to be in charge to deal with their logistical issues, deal with their family problems and all those sorts of things, you suddenly have a police force that's basically incapacitated.”

Bird said five different PPC’s have been designated to East Sepik since his election as the leader of province in 2017.

He said the continued change in top police hierarchy in ESP has affected policing. Meanwhile, NBC News is seeking comments from the Government and Police