Transcript
Terry Dap: We have rugged area of operations. We hardly move into villages or ward areas. Mostly we walk into those areas and we deliver police services.
Johnny Blades: What sort of distances do you walk sometimes?
Terry Dap: We walk about, let's say a month into some of these areas. We have no road accessibility and we have rugged mountains around the border area. Very, very challenging.
Johnny Blades: Do you know how many police officers there are in the district?
Terry Dap: We have three regular police officers, and about twelve auxiliary policemen.
Johnny Blades: Are they reservists?
Terry Dap: Yes, yes.
Johnny Blades: That's not many police officers, is it, for a whole district? (Telefomin's total area is 16,333 km2, while its population was around 50,000 at the last census in 2011).
Terry Dap: Being a policeman in Telefomin district is very, very challenging. All our operations is by foot. We don't go by road, we don't go by air much. Sometimes we have funding to go into some areas by air. Otherwise, all year round we all walk to the remotest parts of this country. Very challenging. Sometimes we don't eat, sometimes we have to walk across our big rivers and then have to climb mountains, in order to attend to complaints. And then when we have arrested and apprehended suspects, we have to take them in by walking into the district headquarters, and then we fly them into Kiunga and Tabubil.
Johnny Blades: Those prisoners are taken to the nearest towns, in neighbouring Western province?
Terry Dap: Yes, yes.
Johnny Blades: How do you get the complaints in the first place? Is it because you've received the complaint by word of mouth communication, or is it by telephone communication?
Terry Dap: Most parts of the district haven't been connected to mobile phones as yet. We receive complaints by mouth and sometimes by handset radios.
Johnny Blades: Like two-way radio, kind of thing?
Terry Dap: Yep. We would like to see that the accessibility of roads into the district is connected, so the accessibility of all the farmers and producers, and movement of goods and services, has to reach through this district.
Johnny Blades: Where would the road come from? Would it come down from Vanimo in the north, or are you thinking from somewhere like Kiunga down in the south.
Terry Dap: Yep. We really need to have road linking into Kiunga from Telefomin, and into Vanimo, so that (there is) accessibility into our provincial headquarters in Vanimo and to Kiunga, the closest service centre in Western Province. This district is the most remote part in the country.