Investigate the crime and not the person who committed it because when you investigate the person you will compromise your job, these were the words of retiring Director Fraud Squad, Chief Superintendent Matthew Damaru.
He told his officers at the Fraud Squad office in Konedobu during his last briefing after serving the Police Force for 42 years.
Chief Supt Damaru said the National Fraud and Anti-Corruption Directorate is a special directorate in the police department that works independently to make sure they fight corruption in the country.
He said there are many challenges that they had gone through, it would sometimes be investigation not completed on time or had not satisfied everyone who registered complains at the office. But many of the cases registered had been looked into and arrest had been done.
Chief Supt Damaru who hails from Western Province will be leaving the office that he had been working for 21 years since taking up post as the head of the directorate in 2000. He is one of the police officers who had reached their retrenchment age.
Chief Supt Damaru officially left the office on Monday, December 20 and took his hat off after contributing significantly to the police force.
He joined the directorate in 2000, while the office was at Badili, when working there he requested for funding to build a new fraud office which was approved and funded by the PNG Incentive Fund at the cost of K7 million.
Chief Supt Damaru said that was one of his great achievement while being the head of the directorate. He said the other was creating fraud divisions in some of the centres in the country and conducting training for officers, as the Bomana Police College did not offer fraud training.
The Deputy Director of NAFCD, Timothy Gitua also thanked Chief Supt Damaru for his service to the people of PNG as he had done a lot for the directorate. Adding that a lot was learnt while working with him.
(Retiree Chief Supt Mathew Damaru right and Deputy Director of NAFCD Timothy Gitua at the NAFCD office at Konedobu.)