Lae police have reported that over 50 Mainland Holdings Ltd (MHL) staff were part of the gathering this morning that led to the attack on their chief executive officer.
Lae metropolitan superintendent, Chris Kunyanban, confirmed this afternoon that the MHL administrative building at Eight-Mile was also damaged during the riot.
It is believed that CEO Brian Fraser was greeted by a large group of frustrated workers when he entered the premises in the morning. The situation immediately escalated with the stoning of his vehicle and nearby buildings.
He spun the vehicle around and made for the exit, but not before getting his window smashed in the process.
While the extent of damages are yet to be ascertained, chief superintendent Kunyanban said the issue stemmed from the workers’ frustration at “being forced to be vaccinated”.
“So they attacked the administrative building that other workers were in,” stated Kunyanban. “Fortunately, the CEO was not in that building.
“It’s a first-of-its-kind incident.”
Kunyanban further drew attention to Prime Minister James Marape’s recent statement in Parliament that employers have the right to decide what is safe for their companies.
“It’s going to be complicated,” he said.
“With our culture, with the way we do business here and with the people’s misunderstanding of the issue, it’s very hard to get people to be vaccinated. And we will have issues, like now, officially, this one has been registered with the police.
“There might be other scenarios that we will be expecting.
“I want the Government to just look at this policy and do it properly so we’ll have a win-win situation because if they don’t, then you might have a lot of issues coming out where we, police, will be the frontliners to stand in to sort out issues between companies and their employees.”