Police begin election planning

POLICE will begin planning for next year’s general election next week, acting Deputy Commissioner in charge of operations Fred Yakasa said yesterday, The National reports.

He said an election planning conference, focusing on police election requirements and budget, had been scheduled for Mt Hagen, Western Highlands, from next Wednesday through Friday.

Yakasa said careful and advance planning was vital in ensuring a peaceful, safe and secure 2012 general election.

Pre-election operations were expected to start in April with police visiting potential problem areas, gathering intelligence and conducting general election security awareness.

The police operations chief said from these, a final election security operations plan would be drafted and prepared for execution.

“The plan will include a detailed budget submission to the government for pre-election security operations and the election proper,” he said.

Yakasa said the final plan would include the mobilisation of all resources required for the elections next year.

Individual provincial police commanders were tasked to develop their own election security plans during the commissioner’s annual conference in Lae last year.

They were told to take stock of their resources including manpower, collect intelligence and conduct major pre-election operations.

“Each commander is expected to provide an assessment of what they require per division per province for a peaceful, free and fair election next year,” Yakasa said.

He stressed that all planning should be completed this year.

Yakasa also warned rogue police personnel to improve on their performance and maintain discipline.

He said the Royal PNG Constabulary had set its focus on improving discipline and the fight against crime in all four regional centres, improving security at major resource project sites, reviving and adequately resourcing the police highway patrol unit, improving community policing and police welfare issues.

“The police management is also devising plans and monitoring devises to apprise individual members of the force,” Yakasa said.

He said these measures were necessary because internal investigations had revealed that some policemen had not made any arrests in their entire career while others had not even prosecuted a case.

“Under the new monitoring system, each member will have a daily, weekly and monthly quota of arrests to make and will also be required to prosecute their cases in court.

“Disciplinary actions will be taken against those who do not perform to expected standards, including termination,” Yakasa said.

“It is time for us to earn our wages and provide the policing service the people of PNG deserve.”