Five civilians contracted with the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary have been certified as police officers today.
This means, the five have similar powers of a commissioned officer and can arrest a suspect or prosecute a case in court.
They are part of a police induction program which is aimed at commissioning civilians who hold uniformed positions.
The five civilians are Stella Siba, Kenny Wagame, Patrick Kape Rebecca Mota and Sam Tumbe.
All are civilian staff contracted to the Police Media Unit of the RPNGC.
Following this training, they were awarded ranks according to the positions they are holding in the Police Media Unit.
The training is the first of its kind and was conducted through the Bomana Police Training College.
Training College Commandant, Perou N’Dranou, said the idea is to get the contracted staff who hold uniformed positions, to appreciate the significance of their roles, and their uniforms.
Their training began on Monday and covered a number of essential roles and responsibilities of being a police officer.
These areas include how a police uniform should to worn, saluting a senior officer and prosecuting a case in a committal court.
This is the first training of such and Assistant Commissioner for Human Resource, Ivan Lakatani, said similar trainings will be conducted in 2017.
The five were presented certificates to symbolise the completion of their training.
