Beyond Waigani: Where Do Provincial Intelligence Committees Fit?

 By Bernard Yegiora 

The recent intelligence-led operation coordinated through the Joint Intelligence Group (JIG) demonstrated that PNG is gradually moving toward a more integrated national security framework. The operation, involving the National Security Agency (NSA), National Intelligence Organization (NIO), PNG Customs Service, PNG Biosecurity Authority, and the Royal PNG Constabulary’s Transnational Crime Unit, highlighted the growing importance of intelligence-sharing and inter-agency coordination in addressing transnational organised crime (TNOC). This article builds on Part 1 of this series, From the NSP to the NSA: PNG’s Security Vision Is Finally Emerging, which examined the emergence of the NSA and the growing shift toward intelligence-led security governance in PNG.

However, an important strategic question now emerges: how should these national-level intelligence coordination mechanisms connect with the provinces?

This question recently emerged during a Zoom guest lecture delivered to students undertaking PG420 International and Regional Security, a course within the Bachelor of Arts (PNG and International Studies) program at Divine Word University. During the discussion, the security professional delivering the lecture raised the idea of Provincial Intelligence Committees (PICs) and challenged students to think critically about how such structures would fit within PNG’s evolving security architecture.

The question is timely.

Much of PNG’s security governance remains heavily centralized around Port Moresby and national agencies. Yet many forms of TNOC operate through provincial environments long before they become national-level security threats. Illegal imports pass through provincial ports and transport routes. Drug distribution networks establish local supply chains. Illegal resource extraction often occurs in remote districts. Criminal actors exploit weak provincial monitoring systems, porous borders, and limited state presence outside major urban centres.

This creates an important operational gap.

While the JIG may strengthen coordination between national agencies, the effectiveness of intelligence-led security will ultimately depend on whether local-level information can flow efficiently upward into the national system. Intelligence does not emerge only from headquarters in Waigani. In many cases, the earliest indicators of criminal activity are first observed at the provincial and community levels.

This is where the idea of PICs becomes strategically relevant.

Importantly, the revised National Security Policy (NSP) 2024–2029 reportedly organizes PNG’s national security system around six security communities:

• Strategic (Military)
• Strategic Intelligence
• Strategic Law Enforcement
• Cyber Security
• Scientific
• National Emergency

The NIO Bulletin provides further insight into how PNG’s emerging national security architecture is being conceptualized and coordinated through specialized security communities under the NSA framework.

The framework positions the NSA as the central coordinating body responsible for integrating these security communities into a whole-of-government national security system.

Within this framework, PICs would not constitute a separate intelligence agency or a seventh security community. Rather, PICs could function as provincial-level coordination mechanisms supporting the interaction of the six security communities at the subnational level.

In practical terms, PICs could potentially help:

• relay local intelligence indicators to the NSA and NIO,
• strengthen coordination between provincial police, customs, immigration, and border agencies,
• support early warning systems during tribal conflicts, disasters, civil unrest, or border incidents,
• improve situational awareness in remote areas,
• and identify localized criminal activities linked to broader transnational networks.

The key point is this: PICs could serve as localized coordination nodes connecting provincial-level observations to the national security architecture coordinated by the NSA.

This discussion becomes even more relevant when viewed alongside PNG’s broader policy trajectory. A major institutional shift can be seen between the Medium Term Development Plan III (MTDP III) and Medium Term Development Plan IV (MTDP IV). Under MTDP III, law, justice, and national security were grouped together under a single Key Result Area. However, MTDP IV separates “Rule of Law and Justice” from “National Security” into two distinct Strategic Priority Areas.

This distinction is significant because it demonstrates that the state no longer views security solely through the narrow lens of policing and criminal justice administration. Instead, national security is increasingly being treated as a standalone strategic sector connected to sovereignty, intelligence coordination, border management, geopolitical competition, economic resilience, and state stability.

This policy evolution aligns closely with the PNG NSP 2013, which originally proposed a more integrated national security framework capable of addressing both traditional and non-traditional threats. The NSP recognized that emerging challenges such as transnational organized crime, maritime insecurity, cyber threats, foreign interference, climate change, and economic vulnerabilities required a coordinated national response extending beyond the conventional law-and-order framework.

The PNG Foreign Policy White Paper (FPWP) 2025 further broadens this strategic thinking by linking national security directly to foreign policy and international engagement. The White Paper states that the revised NSP 2024–2029 will provide the government with:

“an updated framework to assess, prioritise, and respond to security threats through a whole-of-government decision-making process.”

Page 64 of the FPWP highlights the government’s intention to modernize PNG’s national security governance framework in response to increasingly complex and interconnected security challenges.

This is important because many of the threats discussed in the FPWP and the emerging national security framework are not confined to Port Moresby. Illegal fishing, smuggling, illicit trade, cyber-enabled crime, illegal resource extraction, and border security challenges often emerge first within provinces and border regions before escalating into broader national security concerns.

In this context, the proposal for PICs should not be interpreted merely as another policing mechanism. Rather, PICs represent a possible attempt to operationalize a decentralized national security governance structure at the provincial level. Their purpose would be to strengthen intelligence collection, interagency coordination, and early-warning systems between provinces and the central government.

PNG’s existing governance framework already provides some administrative space for provincial coordination mechanisms. The Organic Law on Provincial Governments and Local-level Governments establishes decentralized governance arrangements and coordination responsibilities at the provincial level. However, there does not appear to be any explicit legal framework within the Organic Law or the Border Development Authority framework that specifically establishes PICs or assigns formal intelligence coordination responsibilities to provincial governments.

This raises important policy questions.

Would PICs require new legislation? Would they operate under the authority of the NSA or through provincial administrations? Would they function as advisory coordination bodies or operational intelligence units? How would information confidentiality and intelligence professionalism be protected? Most importantly, how would such structures avoid politicization at the provincial level?

These questions matter because intelligence systems require professionalism, trust, confidentiality, analytical capability, and clear legal safeguards. PNG must avoid creating fragmented or competing intelligence structures that undermine national coordination efforts.

Nevertheless, the broader debate remains important because PNG’s security environment is evolving rapidly. TNOC is increasingly decentralized and embedded within local economies and provincial spaces. Criminal networks are adaptive and capable of exploiting governance gaps wherever they exist.

The emergence of the JIG suggests that PNG is beginning to recognize the importance of intelligence-led security governance at the national level. The next strategic question is whether the country is prepared to develop the provincial coordination mechanisms necessary to support that vision effectively.