A Papua New Guinea MP has called for more resources for the country's defence and police forces to protect its borders.
Papua New Guinea MP for Vanimo-Green, Belden Namah. Photo: Alex Smith
Belden Namah is the MP for Vanimo Green, an electorate in West Sepik province on the country's porous border with Indonesia.
He said cross-border trafficking of guns and illicit goods from Indonesia's Papua province remains a big problem for PNG.
Mr Namah said the PNG government has failed to properly resource the PNG Defence Force and the border weakness reflects that.
"Arms have been smuggled from the border between West Sepik and Western Province, and they're making their way up to the Highlands," he said.
"It is a serious issue, and I can see that this issue is also now affecting the PNG LNG Project where the landowners take up arms and threaten to shut down the LNG Project."
Belden Namah has called for enhanced defence co-operation with Australia and Indonesia.
It was not the first time the MP had made a call to bolster PNG's Defence Force capacbility to manitain border security however old problems around the border persist.
"We continue to have these incursions by Indonesian troops to our side of the border, and our people continue to live in fear because of these problems between Indonesia and the West Papua people," he said.
Mr Namah also said there should be closer co-ordination, close co-operation wth Indonesia's security forces to make sure no incursions were made, saying the government is not sensitive to these kinds of issues.