The Assistant Commissioner of Police in Papua New Guinea's autonomous province of Bougainville says it's hoped that a restructuring of the service, predicted to cost 17 million US dollars, will begin next year.
Thomas Eluh says in the five months that he's been with the Bougainville Police, the force has been operating without a chain of command.
He says until key positions of authority are filled, long-running problems of lawlessness in Bougainville will persist.
Mr Eluh says to make the restructuring financially possible it's been broken into four phases over a 10 to 12 year period.
"So the first phase of our restructure which hopefully is estimated at about six million kina, we have done the paperwork and it is now with Treasury, the national Treasury in Port Moresby, hopefully they can find money to assist us next year to get the restructure rolling."
