PRIME Minister Hon. James Marape has commended the Minister for Police, Hon. Peter Tsiamalili and Police Commissioner, David Manning for following through on his government’s direction to bring in police personnel from over seas to help revitalize capacity and leadership in the Royal PNG Constabulary.
The Prime Minister offered the commendations following the swearing-in this week of two senior policemen from within the Commonwealth reassigned to Papua New Guinea. This is part of the ongoing police revitalization program being undertaken by the Marape-Rosso Government to rebuild the RPNGC within the next 10 years that has begun two years ago.
Chief Superintendent Rodney Swain and Chief Superintendent Glyn Lewis, both with the Australian Federal Police, were sworn in yesterday (04.03.25) into the Royal PNG Constabulary. Swain will work with Community Policing to assist build the reserve constabulary while Lewis will assist the Fraud and Anti-Corruption division. Both policemen have served in other Commonwealth countries, and together share a total of 55 years of policing experience.
PM Marape said, “Amidst our great need to strengthen policy capacity, I want to commend Minister Tsiamalili and Commissioner Manning. It has not been easy with accumulative issues within the RPNGC, and, therefore, welcoming to see Police hierarchy move on my government’s direction to engage over seas capacity to strengthen our Police in the key areas.
“Our police leadership is being revitalized to strengthen capacity in the essential police functions such as community policing, fighting corruption, foreign security investigations and prosecutions.
“We want to bring in more overseas police personnel to twin with our own police in the government’s mid-term plan to modernize the RPNGC and build it up to a 10,000-strong, vibrant and energetic force from the aging 4000-personnel police force I took over in 2019.
“I am particularly happy with these appointments into the corruption-fighting division of the police because of these ongoing efforts to combat corruption at all levels, and I sincerely thank the two officers for taking up the offer to come and work in our country,” said Prime Minister Marape.
The Prime Minister once more reiterated his government’s resolve to systemically overhaul the RPNGC, highlighting that results of this process would take time to fully mature.
“Fighting crime is not an event but a process. Our nation – the most diverse on earth – is facing many challenges from a backlog of inefficiencies which we must contend with today.
“The current police system must stop and be changed completely; overhauled and rebuilt,” he said.
Prime Minister Marape listed work that has already gone into strengthening policing since 2021 with recruitment resuming at Bomana Police College, the signing of the Bilateral Security Agreement with Australia to source capacity, the recent enactment of the anti-terrorism law, and the set-up of a special police unit.
“Modernizing our police force will take time to reach the outcome we are looking at. For instance, to reach a 10,000-strong force, we must work for 10 years to train 6000 police personnel to add to what we now have. We can only out put up to 600 officers a year on the training program that is running. We have a better chance at combating crime more effectively with our current population if we have such police manpower of 10,000. This is the reality of it.”
PM Marape added that Government is also examining other models of policing including grafting soldiers to assist police combat crime and lawlessness, including reservists and community police in partnership with provincial governments.
