Uncontrolled migration into the maritime province of New Ireland is a cause for concern for local authorities.
New Ireland Provincial Police Commander, Superintendent Albert Beli, who took over from former PPC, Felix Nebanat, 18 weeks ago, outlined this as one of the main causes of social disorder in an otherwise peaceful province.
“As a result, we are now anticipating and experiencing crime rate increase in the province,” he said. “Most of them are created by people in the informal sector; people that are unemployed, people that are lazing around doing nothing.
“The most common crime faced in New Ireland Province is gender-based violence and of course, we have crimes related to marijuana and drugs. When people are under the influence of drugs, like marijuana, they cause supplementary crimes like rape, break-and-enter, stealing, conducting illegal roadblocks, robbery and the list goes on.”
PPC Beli further said because of our Melanesian culture, one household can have a lot of unemployed extended relatives living together and when they have no way of meeting their basic needs, they resort to crime.
“Informal sector, for me basically, if we are to clean New Ireland, we have to do away with informal,” he stated. “There should not be buai markets, there should not be ‘brus’ market.
“This is also unfair when we are not contributing anything to the Gross Domestic Product of the country. People need to involve themselves in other ways to show that they are important members of the country. They are citizens so they need to contribute something back to the country.”
Referring to the New Ireland Provincial Government’s vagrancy act, PPC Beli said they stand ready to assist when the provincial authorities call on them to start evictions.