The Police Association of PNG opposes the idea of making deductions to the Joint Security Task Force allowance.
They made their stance known following reports of the Finance Minister saying deductions could be made to cover the cost of parliamentary damages.
Finance Minister James Marape told media on February 15th that he is considering deducting the cost of Parliamentary damages from the Government’s payment commitment to the Joint Security Task Force, which is still outstanding.
This statement did not go down well with executives of the Police Association.
“Just tell the Government, ‘don’t even think of doing it’,” said national president Lowa Tambua.
“That’s madness. Yu laik ranim APEC oh, yu laik ranim forum oh, yu laik wokim wanem samting, make sure house matters, ol wanem wanem samting, yu redim na yu wokim. (If you want to host APEC or forums or whatever, make sure your house matters are in order.)
“So samting pinis nau, husat em diu lo wanem samting blo em, yu givim. Just don’t go wokim nating nating den yu tok olsem ‘ah em ol lain blo mi, em ba orait ya’. Well, disla pasin em i nap nau, em stop nau. (So when these events are over, you give people their due. Just don’t go do whatever then you say ‘those are my people, it should be OK’. This attitude must stop.)
“You’re not even prepared to hold APEC, and you have to take responsibility of it.”
General secretary Clemence Kanau added: “I think that’s not right. We are deviating.
“If we make an undertaking, we deviate, we are inciting a situation; I’m seeing trouble on the horizon.”
The Police Association’s general secretary said they have equated the Government’s outstanding APEC commitment to be between K25 and K30 million.
(File picture of security personnel at Rita Flynn on November 20 – a few hours before the rampage)