Venidora Oliveira – There are calls for the government to provide more training to Suburban Police (OPS) units to improve their professionalism at a grassroots level.
National MP Duarte Nunes said officers worked together directly with the communities they served and therefore needed to learn about ways they could establish a good relationship.
"They (OPS officers) need more training because they work and provide a direct service to the community, they need to know the ways to resolve the problems at suku (village) level," he told National parliament.
He acknowledged that although OPS officers had the capacity to resolve some non-serious cases at suku level and the government had provided some training, it was inadequate.
He also urged the government to create more effective conditions for OPS officers working at a grassroots level. He added that measuring the professionalism of a person also depended on the situation and the conditions in which they worked.
In response to the issue, Operation Commander Superintendent Chief Henrique da Costa said 30 OPS officers had attended training in Bali earlier this year.
During training they learned how to approach the community and professionally resolve cases. He said Indonesia was selected as the training destination as it had already successfully implemented a community-based policing service.
He said this could be used as a reference and model and help motivate officers to implement a similar system in Timor. He added some of OPS members have also attended training in Bekasi, Indonesia, Japan and New Zealand.