By CYRIL GARE
PRIME Minister, James Marape is all praised for the greater resolve of the citizens of Papua New Guinea despite a daring crisis.
He said although the “bubble was almost bursting” across the entire country stemming from the “unfortunate incident of lawlessness” in Port Moresby on Wednesday – Jan 10, the greater resolve of citizens brought back normalcy, and order prevailed in our city, and prevailed in our country.
“I would also like to thank the good citizens of our country. Today we saw bubble almost bursting so to speak but the greater resolve of citizens to bring back normalcy prevail in our city and prevail in our country.
“I just like to say thank you the greater majority of Papua New Guineans in all parts of our country who were able to put in great restrain against social media encouragements, against negative spins that rioting, looting must be the way to go to achieve a certain outcome. Whatever the outcome is by those who are spinning into public domain.
“I want to say thank you very much to every citizen.
“Last night was stressful I understand when situation got out of hand there were looting in certain parts of our city but also in the midst of those lootings, good news emerged certain members of our communities also tried their very best to protect and try to stop what happened to spread of what happen and I want to thank the greater part of our country who allowed goodness to prevail in the midst of what could have been an ugly situation yesterday and today.
“I also want to say thank you to the members of the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary right across the length and breadth of our country. Of course, there were issues here with the Port Moresby based command, National Capital District and Central command where there was apparent break down but a greater resolve with members of RPNGC nationwide must be commended.
“I would thank the Lae command, I thank all other regional commands who are able to steadfast to their uniform to their loyalty and oath of office they were able to ensure our country did not see spread of lawlessness, spread of protest, and spread of contest.
“I want to thank Members of Parliament today they came big especially Ministers of Cabinet. We sat long into the day. We did await the National Security Advisory Committee (NSAC) to convene, they did convene.
“They offered recommendations to the National Security Council (NSC), we convened, and our recommendations were proposed under a Cabinet Paper and Cabinet just concluded its Decisions (as presented herein).
“I have Cabinet Ministers here with me to give country confidence that it was a decision made it totality.
Wrong Venue
“The unfortunate incident of what happened yesterday, unfortunate incident of lawlessness that permeated our city started off with ill-discipline from members of our disciplinary forces.
“They have genuine cause of concern. There are formal ways to address those concerns, but it was taken out of context, out of scale, and created and exacerbated the situation where our people resorted to lawlessness, not all, but few parts of our city faced duress, stress, rioting, and lawlessness.
“The events of Jan 10 should not have happened; it was regrettable and must never be repeated. Papua New Guineans are Christians, God fearing, and generally law abiding.
“Our democratic institutions and processes including our judicial system are functioning and this is where our grievances should be directed to for arbitrary relief and redress,” the Prime Minister said.
