By CLIFFORD FAIPARIK
Sixty high powered firearms purchased by Exxon Mobil for the Gulf Police are missing since the 2012 National elections, incoming Gulf Provincial Police Commander Chief Inspector Jeffery Lemb says. These firearms including the construction of the new Provincial Police Headquarters (PHQ) and the construction of the new Kerema police barracks were bought under the K4million economic corridor funds. Now these firearms are missing and the construction of the PHQ and the new police barracks are incomplete because funds have allegedly been misused. Also the PHQ structure is unstable and we believe that the design was not approved by the Building Board”.
Lemb said that he will investigate the missing firearms and the missing funds that led to the incomplete PHQ. “I will check the ZD firearms system (local firearms dealer) to investigate funds used to purchase the firearms for Gulf Police and If those firearms were recorded. However in the future the funds allocated to Gulf Police by Exxon Mobil for infrastructure projects will not be managed by the Police Management. I will ensure that Exxon Mobil uses their own funds to build these infrastructure projects and hand over those completed projects to the police. Because I don’t trust us (police management) to manage our own projects. That is to avoid such abuse of funds in the future.
Meanwhile Lemb said that they will be doing election awareness throughout the Province during their election security operations. “And During polling, extra men will come in to boost the number to 400 men power. Now we have only 50 regular polices men and 150 Reservists. We are still waiting for security operations funding to do awareness. In Other Provinces the Provincial Administrations are helping their Provincial Police but not Gulf. We want to do awareness to stop homebrew consumption and for voters to cast their votes in an orderly manner.