Preparations for the 2022 National General Elections in the West Sepik Province are progressing well and on track, says West Sepik Provincial Police Commander (PPC) Chief Inspector Joe Poema. Mr Poema said the Provincial Election Steering Committee (PESC) was established and has been identifying hotspot areas, gathering information and intelligent reports. He said they were conducting election briefings weekly to ensure policemen and women are taking ownership of the security aspect of the election before going into the election and the polling periods. “I am taking a bottom-up approach involving Police Station Commanders (PSCs), Officer in Charge (OICs), Section Heads, Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), and other partners in the security planning briefings to ensure they provide us with weekly situation reports,” Mr Poema said. Mr Poema said the members of the Criminal Investigation Division (CID) in the province were deployed to the Edwaki area in the Telefomin District to access and collect intelligent reports on the killings of a policeman and two locals last year due to confrontations between Police Mobile Squad members and villagers. He said the area was left volatile and seen as a hotspot so the CID officers were deployed there to collect intelligent reports. He said these assessment reports would assist them in the deployment of the security personnel during the polling periods. Mr Poema said policemen were on standby to travel to Telefomin station this week under the sponsorship of Telefomin District Development Authority (DDA) to conduct awareness and gather intelligent assessment reports. They will remain there till the end of this month. He said if there is air transport support then they will go to Oksapmin, Yapsie and the Numea Local Level Government areas as well to conduct awareness campaigns and risk assessments.