INFORMATION ABOUT OUR PAPUA NEW GUINEA POLICE CLEARANCE SERVICE

Transcription

1 INFORMATION ABOUT OUR PAPUA NEW GUINEA POLICE CLEARANCE SERVICE ABOUT US We are an Australian registered company with offices in Cairns and Port Moresby. We provide agency services for clients requiring business services and arrangements in PNG and other Pacific countries. Our director Aaron Hayes is an Australian citizen, a teacher and psychologist with many years business and professional experience in PNG and the islands. ABOUT PNG POLICE CLEARANCES If you have previously lived or worked in Papua New Guinea and are now applying for new employment or a visa to work or settle in another country, you may require a clearance certificate from the PNG police, otherwise known as a police records check or police character check. Only the police records office in Port Moresby can issue universally recognised police clearance certificates for non-citizens because non-citizen applications also require a name check on the Interpol database and only the police headquarters in Port Moresby has a satellite uplink to Interpol. Expatriate police clearance certificates issued by other police stations like Lae are not accepted by police jurisdictions and immigration authorities in many countries including Australia and Canada. Accordingly obtaining a PNG police clearance certificate can be difficult and slow because the police records section in Port Moresby has only a small number of staff but they receive hundreds of applications every week, not only from former expatriate workers but also from local jobseekers. Most employers in PNG now require job applicants to have police clearances. Further, many employers, government agencies and immigration authorities will not accept clearance certificates more than 12 months old so many people have to re-apply each time they change jobs or need a residence or work visa for a new country. Applying by mail from overseas for a PNG police certificate is generally unsuccessful because (a) the procedure requires that an application fee receipt from a government cashier s office be attached to each application, but nowadays the government cashiers only accept EFTPOS card payments in local currency, in person. Wire transfers, Western Union transfers, International cheques and even PGK cash sent in envelopes to the police records office will not be receipted

2 because the officers at NCRO Gordons do not have the time or inclination to take your money up to the government cashier s office at Waigani or Boroko and stand in line for an hour to deposit your fee payment or figure out what to do with your international bank draft that the government cashier will not accept. (b) the police are only able to dispatch certificates by ordinary airmail, untrackable, which is both slow and unreliable, and even if you enclose a self-addressed prepaid courier bag the officers just don t have the time to arrange courier pick-ups and the like when they have 100 local people standing in front of them at the counter every day clamouring for their certificates. Accordingly applications received in the mail are just too hard and are conveniently left at the bottom of the pile and forgotten about, and the K10 cash you enclosed in the envelope may just disappear. To successfully obtain an expatriate police clearance typically requires yourself or another person to pay the application fee at a government cashier s office, lodge the application personally at the police records office and obtain a lodgement receipt, then attend at the counter every Thursday (expat counter day) to enquire for the certificate until it is ready. If you have already left PNG, this process is virtually impossible to manage unless you have a friend or agent on the ground in Port Moresby to physically walk your application through this procedure. This is where Pacific Development Services can step in and assist by lodging your application on your behalf and following up and nagging the records officers every week until it is ready then forward it to you. ABOUT OUR LODGMENT SERVICE To date we have obtained over 200 PNG police certificates on behalf of our clients, mainly departed expatriate workers but also some locals. Our service fee is AUD 250 per clearance certificate (or AUD 400 for a couple) including dispatch to you by certified mail anywhere in the world. We realise that this is a lot of money but most of it goes towards labour hours for our staff to wait in line and pay your lodgement fee at the government cash office, wait in line to lodge your application at the National Criminal Records Office (NCRO), and wait in line every Thursday thereafter to follow up on your application and nag the officers until your certificate is ready. Unfortunately the processing system is the same for everybody and there are no short cuts. PROCESSING TIMES AND THE RECORDS CHECK PROCESS The processing time for an expat police clearance certificate varies enormously from a minimum of 4 weeks up to 6 months. It really is impossible to predict how long your certificate will take which is why it s important to apply early. We ll try to explain why it takes so long and make it clear that the actual processing and processing time is very much out of our hands: all we can do is lodge your application for you and keep enquiring for it until it is ready:

3 The PNG police records office at Gordons is very slow and not very methodical. For a start the records check process is done manually and is not fully computerised as in Western countries. When your application is received by NCRO the attached documents are first checked to make sure all required papers have been submitted and the application is registered in the lodgement book and given a lodgement ticket with a lodgement number. Your application is then walked next door to the forensic bureau for a manual fingerprint check which can take days or weeks depending how many applications are waiting and how many trained forensics officers are available. Often the officers are busy on criminal casework. After fingerprint checking, your name and variations is checked in the manual files of criminal records in the NCRO. This also takes time because there are decades of files in manilla folders in boxes everywhere to be searched through. Some recent year criminal records are now on their computer database but the task of inputting all the records data in to the computer is woefully incomplete and any computer name check must also be supplemented by a check of the paper files which takes ages because the files are not neatly stored in alphabetical order but many are stored by year date and even by province (this is why the verified dates of your stay in PNG are important). The records officers seem to be able to find what they are looking for most of the time or in your case hopefully find that there is NO record but it takes time. Once the records officer is satisfied that you don t have a criminal record on file with NCRO your application is then physically transported (by police internal mail system ie on the back seat of a police car) down to police headquarters at Konedobu to the Interpol liaison office. As a member of Interpol, the PNG police are obliged to check all expat applicants against the Interpol database and security watch list to see if you have any outstanding warrants in other countries and see if your name is flagged on the watch list. After the Interpol check your application is physically transported back to NCRO at Gordons for the printing of your clearance certificate. The certificates are typed up by civilian keyboard operators in the typing pool and spelling mistakes / wrong dates / wrong passport numbers appear on the certificates about 10% of the time which is why we always send a scan of the certificate to you first for final checking before we mail it out to you. If there are any errors the we have to give the certificate back for reprinting which further adds to processing time. The printing of certificates is sometimes delayed by technical problems with their laser printers and every time the toner cartridge runs out it takes two weeks to raise a cheque from the finance department to buy a new cartridge (of course nobody seems to think of ordering spare cartridges in advance). After printing, the certificate must be stamped and signed by the officer in charge of the NCRO which is another bottleneck if he is away sick or attending a conference, because his signature is the only recognised signature allowed on the certificates. Apart from the convoluted, manual nature of the clearance process there are other factors that slow it down. Electricity blackouts are a major problem in Port Moresby and the NCRO does not have backup generators so when the power goes off they have to close the office because they cannot work without their computers, printers, lights and air-conditioning (it s terribly hot and stuffy in the building when the air-con is not working). Other delays are caused by officers being called away to attend meetings, parades, funerals and help on forensic cases, and the usual public

4 service problems of going early to lunch and coming back late, using office time to go to the bank and chew betel nut, and taking days off from work without any apparent reason. Even though a numbered lodgement ticket is (usually) given when an application is received, applications are not always processed in turn. Sometimes the officers just seem to pick up applications at random off the desk and work on them. Applications from couples often become separated and are processed weeks apart. By sheer bad luck some applications get buried under a pile of other applications that are dumped onto a desk and the buried application may not surface again until months later. This is a major cause of file mishandling that causes about 10% of applications to go missing for months and then suddenly turn up when the applications on top are all processed or moved. If your application is taking longer than 2 months and we suspect your file has been mishandled or lost, we may ask you to send up another set of fingerprints and application papers and we ll lodge a second application for you which will probably get you a certificate faster than waiting for the original application to be uncovered. Then if you end up with two certificates bonus! On top of the actual processing time you will also have to allow time for your documents to arrive in PNG (by mail or courier however you send them) and up to 1 week pre-lodgment time while we wait for next lodgement day (every Thursday), and then allow for delivery time when we mail the certificate out to your address. We want to reiterate that Pacific Development Services has no way of controlling the processing times. We just have to be patient and persistent in our follow-ups of applications. In PNG it is not a good idea to pester the police too much or make threats of lodging official complaints about poor service etc: it really doesn t help and could even make everything worse. We d also like to make it clear that we do not pay bribes or other inducements to police officers so please do not ask us to do so. Official corruption is a big issue in PNG and we do not want to be part of that problem. We do give the NCRO officers a Christmas present every year but we don t pay lunch money to speed individual applications. We do mark urgent on applications needing a quick turnaround and sometimes this helps but not always. Having been forewarned about how long it may take to get you a police clearance certificate from PNG, please do not cast doubt on our honesty or efficiency if and when you become frustrated waiting for your certificate. You MUST apply well before any deadlines you may have we suggest you apply at least 3 months in advance of when you will actually need the certificate. You WILL eventually get a certificate through our service (as opposed to virtually no hope if you just send your papers in an envelope to PO Box 85 Konedobu), but unfortunately it s not going to be quick, easy or cheap.

5 HOW TO PROCEED 1. PAY SERVICE FEE Pay our service fee (AUD 250) as per our quotation / proforma invoice which you should have received together with this document). After paying the fee we will forward you a copy of the correct application form and a letter to show your local police station regarding the fingerprinting specifications. 2. GET A FULL SET OF YOUR FINGERPRINTS Go to your local police station and request a full set of your fingerprints (both hands) to be taken on your local police s own standard fingerprint form. The assisting officer s name, badge number and station phone number must be written on the form and it should also be rubber-stamped with the police station stamp. The fingerprints can be either old fashioned ink prints in BLACK ink, or a black ink printout of digitally scanned prints. BLUE OR RED INK IS NOT ACCEPTABLE. In most Australian states, fingerprints can only be taken at major police stations and there is usually a fee of around $30. In some states of the USA, and in Western Australia, fingerprints are not taken by police but by authorised private agencies (in Perth, contact In NSW the police will not release the fingerprints to you over the counter, they will insist that you bring your whole set of application documents and an international express post envelope with you to the police station (addressed as per section (6) below) and the police officer who takes your prints will personally put the fingerprints in the envelope together with your other documents, seal it and mail the envelope directly to us. (Please remind the officer to allow time for the prints to dry properly before enveloping because we have had some instances where wet prints became smudged when enveloped and were rejected by the PNG police on arrival.) NB Normally the PNG police return the fingerprints to us together with the clearance certificate and we will normally mail both the fingerprints and the certificate back to you in one envelope. However occasionally the police mistakenly destroy or misfile the fingerprints and give us only the clearance certificate. 3. FILL IN THE APPLICATION FORM Print out and fill in the blank application form which we will to you. Don t forget to also make your right index fingerprint in the box on the application form. It must be a clear, rolled fingerprint in black ink that will match the right index print on your full set of fingerprints. Some police officers may be willing to help you make this extra fingerprint on the application form at the same time as you get your main fingerprints done, while others may decline to assist. If you need to make the extra print at home and you don t already have a black ink pad, you can buy a black ink stamp pad at a newsagency / stationery shop or buy a children s ink stamp play set from a toy shop. You must use a black ink pad. Don t just paint your finger with ballpoint pen or marking pen - it won t make a suitable print. You must also attach a passport or ID photo of yourself in the top right hand corner of the application form (it does not mention this on the form but it IS a requirement). Use glue or staple. Note that PLACE OF BIRTH means the hospital or clinic where you were born. SUBURB means

6 the location of the hospital. PASSPORT NUMBER means your current passport. DATE OF ARRIVAL means your first entry to PNG, DATE OF DEPARTURE means your final or last exit from PNG. 4. WRITE A COVERING LETTER Your covering letter authorises our staff to lodge the application on your behalf. Here is a sample covering letter: Officer in Charge PNG Police National Criminal Records Office, Port Moresby Dear Sir, My name is, a citizen of, and my current address is. I lived in PNG from to while working for (employer) and was resident at (PNG address). Copies of my current and old passports and my work visa from that time are attached. I now require a PNG police clearance and since I am no longer resident in PNG I have engaged staff from PNG Development Services Ltd to apply for this document on my behalf. (Signature and date) If you no longer have your old passport with PNG working resident visa inside, you should change the wording in the covering letter to say so, and you must also attach a statutory declaration about your lost passport, old work visa details (including employer name) and residency dates, witnessed/notarised/verified by a justice of the peace, police officer with minimum rank of sergeant, commissioner for oaths, notary public or other designated official witness as permitted in your jurisdiction. The declaration must also have the rubber stamp or seal of the official and the official s contact phone number for verification. Alternatively you may provide a letter from your former PNG employer verifying the dates and location of your employment. If you are not sure of the exact dates of your first entry and last exit from PNG you should give approximate dates followed by approx. on the application form (and on the covering letter and statutory declaration, if required). 5. COMPILE ALL REQUIRED DOCUMENTS. Here is the full list of documents required: application form with ID photo in the top right corner and right index fingerprint in the box covering letter (see 4 above) your full set fingerprints (see 2 above) colour scan copy of the photo page of your current passport (copy does not have to be certified) colour scan copy of the photo page of your old passport used during your time in PNG (if different) a copy of the work visa or resident visa from the passport used during your time in PNG NB if you no longer have the old passport and visa please see instructions in section (4) above). if you have changed your name since you lived in PNG (eg by marriage) you should include a

7 scan copy of your certificate (copy does not have to be certified) Please note all documents should be copied or scanned on a colour photocopier or document scanner. Photographs of documents taken by camera or mobile phone are not acceptable. 5. FORWARD DOCUMENTS BY FOR CHECKING scans of all your documents to and we will double-check that all is correct before you send us the originals, and we will keep your with attachments on file temporarily in case we need to print out any extra copies of your docs at PNG police request. (NB our system is secure and only our key staff have access). 6. SEND YOUR DOCUMENTS Gather your set of documents (original application form and fingerprints, colour copies of everything else) and staple them in the top left corner and send to us by either (A) express mail or (B) door to door courier to the appropriate address as per below. NB Door to door couriers will not deliver to a PO Box address and the PNG post office does not deliver mail to street addresses here so please carefully select which address to use. (A) EXPRESS MAIL through your local post office by trackable international express mail or EMS postal courier, direct to our post office post box address: EXPRESS MAIL ADDRESS PNG DEVELOPMENT SERVICES LTD Att: Eileen Salewagen PO BOX 531 GORDONS NCD 0135 PAPUA NEW GUINEA PH (675) / (B) DOOR TO DOOR COURIER eg Fedex, TNT, UPS or DHL (we find that Fedex is faster) COURIER ADDRESS PNG DEVELOPMENT SERVICES LTD Att: Eileen Salewagen SECTION 15 LOT 8 HIBISCUS ST HOHOLA JUBILEE NCD 0135 PORT MORESBY, PAPUA NEW GUINEA PH (675) /

8 LODGEMENT AND FOLLOW-UP Once we receive your documents our staff will attempt to lodge your application on the next lodgement day which is normally every Thursday. Occasionally the NCRO is closed on Thursdays due to funerals, public holidays, electricity blackouts etc and then we have to wait for the following Thursday. Once your application is lodged we ll you a copy of the lodgement receipt and we ll commence the process of enquiring for your certificate every Thursday until it is ready. From time to time we will send you updates if we have any news about your application, but if you don t hear from us it means there is nothing to report and we are still chasing your application. Please don t bombard us with s and phone calls asking why your certificate is not ready yet we have already explained earlier in this document the reasons why it may take a long time and if you don t accept our forewarning about a possible long time frame then it s better that you make your own private arrangements for lodging your application. As mentioned earlier, occasionally applications are mishandled/misfiled/misplaced by the NCRO so if there is still no sign of your certificate being ready after two months we will ask you to send us a fresh set of documents and we will lodge a second application for you. ENQUIRIES For further information please us first before calling on the phone because we can usually understand and respond to your query more time-efficiently by pasting FAQ text into an reply for you rather than explaining the same things over the phone to every caller. Cold calling especially on scratchy overseas lines also sometimes results in misunderstandings. Pacific.Development.Services@gmail.com