Dear Editor, Reading about the very many issues raised by Mr. Mike Chase of Te POM, regarding the problems with our mapu yahooing on the roads, doing wheelies, etc. – “showing off to get attention” (Cook Islands News, Tuesday, May 14), he is no doubt correct, and opens up a Pandora’s Box of social issues.

Where do you start to point the finger of blame? However, these issues of showing off on our public roads should have been, and could have been sorted out a number of years ago when this problem first began to appear but was not addressed!

So who stuffed up? No, not the Police, who are seriously understaffed and under resourced; sometimes with only two officers on a shift, so how can they perform their duties effectively? The Police Commissioner could be part of the problem, but that’s another story. The real problem is the PM, Mark Brown, also Minister of Police! As well as Minister of Finance. He should be able to do it all! But he hasn’t! He is solely responsible for not requesting, prioritising and allocating sufficient budget for these officers to do their jobs properly.

Solution? Firstly, increase their pay across the board to a satisfactory and attractive level, a living wage, and that will immediately get more people wanting to become Police Officers. The claim is always that there is not enough money in the Budget however he (Mark Brown) clearly can find funds and budget for all his favourite projects – deep sea mining is certainly one near the top of the list apparently still in its exploratory stage, and yet already massive investments in infrastructure, as well as staffing. And most of these employees would be on very big salaries, with no risks and comfortable air con offices, not the meagre pay that Police receive to do their jobs in often difficult and dangerous circumstances.

Policing the roads, and just keeping those stupid, brainless idiots on motorbikes who do wheelies all around the island at will, as if there was no law and order, where are the cops when you need them? Well, truth is there are not enough personnel to go around. So they can’t be everywhere. (Maybe Norman George is right, and we are in big trouble already). These social problems are here now and these are today’s real problems and real issues.

 Police need bigger budgets in order to employ more personnel and to do their jobs effectively. So Mr. PM, get real, get focused and do the job you are being paid so extremely well to do, and recognise the priorities. If you can’t handle the Police portfolio because you are overworked, or have too many other portfolios under your belt (or are not in the country long enough to make decisions), do the right thing and pass it on to someone who will focus on the issues that affect our community today. None of this is very difficult, it only requires the will.

Over to you PM, do you have the will? 

(Name and address supplied) 

Editor’s note: A right of reply email was sent to the Office of the Prime Minister on Thursday. In a statement yesterday, PM Mark Brown, who is also the Minister for Police, said Police Commissioner James Keenan will not be seeking a second term when his contract expires at the end of this month.