Thirty-five-year-old Robert Richard is an inspiration to his community at one of the biggest suburbs of Port Moresby, in Gerehu.
Topping the class of 155 Reservists at Bomana in Court filing, Richard passed out with flying colours at Bomana Police Training College to volunteer and provide community policing, and assisting the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary during the 2022 National General Elections.
He was recruited under the new reservist recruitment drive by RPNGC, intake 1 of 2022.
Richard comes from a mixed parentage of Southern Highlands Province and Chimbu and is married with three children.
Richard is a public servant at the Department of Personnel Management. He works as the Acting Manager Provincial Autonomy & Coordination Branch, under the Legislative and Administration Reforms Division.
The branch was created in 2019 to look after legislative and administrative matters of three provinces who have received greater autonomy; Enga, New Ireland and Autonomous Region of Bougainville.
Richard sees the Reservist program as a stepping-stone to being a role model in his community, and bring change and positivity.
“I have lived at Gerehu Stage 4 almost my entire life, and I have grown up witnessing criminal activities, petty crimes, all sorts of violence, and I thought this would be the opportunity for me to be a good example in my community to help young ones live a good life,” said Richard.
Robert and his colleagues have undergone six weeks of intensive training, sworn oaths, and have received police regiment numbers, powers bestowed to perform a regular police duty.
“This is a lifetime achievement for me. I’m happy DPM has allowed me to be part of a reservists’ program. We have received basic training on election operations, parade marching drills, court filing and presentation in court, introduction to homicides, and conducting traffic roadblocks,” he said.
Richard is posted at Gerehu Police Station, awaiting Police Call-Out, working his shift job at the station and full-time job at the same time.
On his first post to Gerehu Police Station, Richard has seen a lot of arrests being made, with no court file entries.
He said because of his high performance at Bomana Police Training College in Court Filing and topping the class, he used his skills to help police enter court files.
“I thought the recruitment will be to beef up police man-power during the elections only, but I’m amazed at the kind of training offered. I learnt to be open minded, disciplined, upholding the spirit of team work, and is part of the bigger team to make 2022 NGE a safe, free and fair elections,” said Richard.
He said while still at Gerehu Police Station, he would like to do more community policing, and also use his skills to impart knowledge to police personnel to file better police reports and court files so that crimes can be addressed.
Public Servants who will be involved in the 2022 National General Elections will be assisting RPNGC over the period of May 12th to July 29th, as according to DPM Circular No.06 & 07 of 2022 on the release of public servants to assist the Electoral Commission and RPNGC conduct the election.