NICHOLAS KIRIWOM: WE HAVE TO BE PROACTIVE, OTHER THAN BE REACTIVE TO MADANG's LAW AND ORDER PROBLEMS

Settlement is not a crime and settlers are not criminals, let us be mindful about that. Settlement is a product of urbanisation and urbanisation is not a crime either.

By Rtd Judge Justice Nicholas Kiriwom

In my previous post I said that settlement in Madang (like every other town in PNG) goes back to the colonial era when employers provided no accommodation to their faithful servants who needed roof over their heads and in order to serve their masters. The servants then in consultation with local landowners or administration erected makeshift homes on the fringes of the town, which homes eventually developed into permanent houses, and they squatted on those places and eventually became known as squatters or settlers. But these were not unemployed people, they had work and contributed to the development of Madang Town and Madang Province. There are some settlements that go as far as that period such as the bulk store, wagol, yabob road and kerema compound, biliau just to name a few.

We cannot remove settlements, we have tried it before and it did not work, settlements kept springing up again, many settlers returned or new ones came and took the place of those that left. You cannot solve lawlessness in Madang by removing settlements indiscriminately. It is like throwing the baby with the bathtub out the window. There will be many employers both government and private who will be employeeless or workerless when there is closure of settlements and mass exodus of many public servants who live in some of these settlements.

If you are looking for someone to blame for the mushrooming of settlements in Madang town, blame the employers for not providing accommodation to their staff. And who will deny this? When you see most advertisement for vacant positions in the media, more often than not the ad carriers the statement ‘own accommodation’ or ‘accommodation not provided’. People look for jobs in town and once they secure that job, accommodation comes next.

We have inherited a problem through oversight which is now haunting us. But we can overcome it. We just need to rise above the issue at hand and deal with it positively and not be influenced by emotion. Removal of settlements can have serious backlash as many others have commented. We have to think and act smartly in this modern era to deal with the issue facing us without creating more problem.

We have to identify those settlements that have contributed to the development of the province and those settlements that sprung up recently to take advantage of the development in the province. The latter group must be thoroughly screened and critical decision need to be made about the future of those new settlements.

There must be a cut-off point when no-more settlements be permitted to spring up anywhere with 10 kilometre radius of Madang Town which requires cooperation from communities in and around Madang Town and villages within the 10 or so kilometre radius.

All houses on legitimate settlements be registered with a central body managed by the provincial administration and every occupant of each house must also be registered. There should be a limit of number of people in a household and the population of each household is also registered with the administration. There should be regular inspection and monitoring of these homes to make sure that they are not harbouring unemployed vagrants without jobs in their homes.

Our biggest problem over the years is that we have given the settlements free hand to decide who they bring home to their houses and how long they remain with them. We need to regulate this unnecessary movement of people. We failed in this regard and classified settlements like ‘no-go zones’ or ‘place blong ol raskals’ and have now become fearful of settlements as it they are poisonous snakes, and now we cry out to get rid of them.

The key word here is manage. We need to manage the settlements properly. If we manage the settlements properly and at the same time have an effective policing system, we can get on top of the lawlessness in Madang Town. Madang town is not that big. With enough police patrol in public places and ensuring that the public cooperate to report any bad behaviour anywhere to the police and there is immediate action taken and the problem is addressed, we should be able to solve our law and order problem. We just need cooperation from everyone.

Law and order issue is not just police work. This is where we get it all wrong. It’s like sending our children to school and leave discipline and good manners to the teachers only to teach our kids while we sit back and expect to see a good outcome at the end. Complacency is our biggest failure. We are too complacent. We need to be proactive rather than reacting to situations when matters get out of hand because we allowed such to happen.

I think the time has come now to put to test this so-called freedom of movement protection in the Constitution that has been much abused and it has become a curse on us throughout the country.

We can start now in Madang by regulating the movement of people coming into town and staying overnight with relatives, limiting the number of settlements to ones that can be managed and prohibiting further growth of squatters and no more houses to be built on exisiting settlements with out permission from town authority or an appropriate regulatory body managed by the provincial administration.

It will help greatly, if the so-called NID System that the Government is talking about is fast-tracked and everyone is registered. We are just a small country with less than 8 million people and this registration process started in the last government and is yet to see the end. In other countries, it would have taken much less than a year to accomplish. But then this is PNG.

These are just some off-the-cuff thoughts I am sharing for those concerned about what is happening in Madang Town today. Please share your views and we can articulate and refine as we go along.

Thank you.