The Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary does not have the resources to combat the increasing rate of piracy in our waters.
This dangerous scenario was echoed in Parliament this morning by Police Minister Robert Atiyafa who said the Police water unit is non-functioning.
Kairuku – Hiri MP, Peter Isoaimo during Question Time asked if local police had boats to chase people committing the act of piracy, after a recent murder of a man from Roku Village within the waters near Port Moresby.
Roku village is inside the electorate boundary of Isoaimo’s electorate.
“Do we still have in existence the Water Police unit and are operational to counter the act of piracy in Port Moresby and Central Province areas,” Isoaimo asked.
Minister Aytiafa replied that shortfall in funding continues to affect his department.
“I brought a submission to NEC and they approved it but do to financial constraint we have not looked into it.
“Through that (Police mordernisation) program we were supposed to funded boats for police department (to combat) see piracy but again due to the financial constrain more than 50 percent of funding had been withheld.
“We do have water police, 10 years ago the government at that time bought dingers and boats for maritime provinces, as I am speaking now there are none of those boats are inexistence (in operation), they had lack of maintenance and have broken down,” Aytiafa said.
Piracy has been reported in the seas of Alotau, Morobe, Madang and other coastal provinces.
Also criminals are using boats to escape after committing robberies in maritime provinces.
Caption: Body of the late Roku Villager killed by pirates two weeks ago.