A ban on domestic travel within Papua New Guinea will come into effect tomorrow, says Pandemic Controller and Police Commissioner David Manning.
In a statement today he outlined those that have been vaccinated will be allowed to travel from one province to another while those who are not yet vaccinated will not do so.
“Citizens who wish to travel domestically will need a valid reason and approval from the controller or the provincial administrator.
“This will now see citizens who have been vaccinated be free to move around from one province to another.”
This was announced in a notice dated June 30, 2021 the Number 13 Amendment measure was made to the amendment Number 3 for Domestic Travel Measures.
The notice states that on the paragraph 1 of the original measure 3 has been revoked and replaced with the following: “No unvaccinated person may traveled by aircraft from one province in PNG to another province accept for person who have a valid reason as listed in schedule 1 of this measure or who has approval from the controller, his dialogue or the provincial administrator from the province from which the persons journey originates. For the purpose of this paragraph a person is considered vaccinated if they have received 1 dose, even if to be fully vaccinated the person would require 2 dose of vaccine.”
The amendment will be in effect as of Friday July 2, 2021 and any person that failed to adhere to this direction is deemed to have committed an offence under the National Pandemic Act 2020.
The direction to ban unnecessary domestic travel is confusing to the general public when other events like sporting games and clubs that encourage social gathering.
Many Papua New Guineans criticized this move on social media saying this is against their freedom of movement and not good for PNG as a democratic nation.
The controller has also instructed travelers coming into PNG from overseas to be in a 21 days isolation. Any person or organization fails to adhering to the direction is in breach of the National Pandemic Act 2020 and will be dealt accordingly.