From the NSP to the NSA: PNG’s Security Vision Is Finally Emerging

 By Bernard Yegiora 

PNG’s recent intelligence-led operation against illegally imported food products may appear to be an ordinary enforcement action. However, strategically, it represents something much more important. It signals that PNG is slowly beginning to operationalize long-standing national security policy ideas that were first articulated more than a decade ago.

The recent operation coordinated through the Joint Intelligence Group (JIG), involving the National Security Agency (NSA), National Intelligence Organisation, PNG Customs Service, PNG Biosecurity Authority, and the Royal PNG Constabulary’s Transnational Crime Unit, demonstrated the growing role of intelligence-sharing and inter-agency coordination in PNG’s security environment.

Screenshot of a reported article published in the Post-Courier newspaper and shared privately by a reader. The report highlights the recent intelligence-led operation coordinated through the JIG and the NSA against illegal imports in PNG.

For many observers, the significance of the operation lies not only in the seizure of illegally imported goods, but in what it reveals about the evolution of PNG’s national security architecture.

Importantly, the concept of a National Security Agency is not entirely new. The proposal was already envisioned in PNG’s 2013 National Security Policy (NSP), developed during the O’Neill government. The policy recognized that PNG’s security institutions often operated in fragmented and uncoordinated ways, limiting the country’s ability to respond effectively to emerging threats. 

Goal 9 of PNG’s 2013 NSP outlined the need for effective national security coordination through a whole-of-nation approach, including the proposed establishment of the NSA and joint agency intelligence-sharing mechanisms.

The NSP repeatedly emphasized the need for a “whole-of-government” approach to national security and stronger coordination mechanisms between agencies. It identified transnational crime, border security weaknesses, drug trafficking, organized crime, illegal resource exploitation, and corruption as major national security threats facing PNG.

Most importantly, the policy specifically proposed the establishment of a National Security Agency within the Department of Prime Minister and NEC to improve coordination, intelligence sharing, monitoring, and national security management. The policy also proposed that the NSA coordinate joint agency intelligence sharing and support a whole-of-nation approach to intelligence gathering.

In many ways, what PNG is witnessing today is the gradual implementation of ideas that have existed on paper since 2013.

This is why the Marape-Rosso government deserves recognition for continuing and operationalizing aspects of the earlier policy vision rather than abandoning it entirely. In PNG politics, continuity in long-term policy implementation is often difficult to sustain across different governments. Yet the establishment of the NSA on an interim basis and the emergence of the JIG framework suggest an effort to strengthen coordination within the country’s security sector rather than allowing institutions to continue operating in isolation.

The recent operation also demonstrates an important shift toward intelligence-led approaches to security governance. Traditionally, PNG’s law enforcement responses have often been reactive — responding after crimes occur. However, transnational organised crime networks are increasingly sophisticated, decentralized, and capable of exploiting weak borders, governance gaps, and limited coordination between agencies.

Intelligence-led security approaches attempt to address this problem differently. Instead of relying solely on arrests and reactive enforcement, intelligence systems focus on gathering information, analysing threats, identifying patterns, and disrupting criminal activities before they escalate.

This is particularly important for PNG because the country’s geography, porous maritime borders, difficult terrain, and uneven state presence create opportunities for illicit actors to exploit weaknesses in governance systems. The 2013 NSP itself acknowledged these vulnerabilities and warned that transnational crime posed serious risks to national sovereignty, economic security, and social stability.

The recent JIG operation therefore matters because it provides visible evidence that coordination mechanisms envisioned in the NSP are beginning to emerge operationally.

Of course, important challenges remain. Intelligence coordination requires institutional trust, analytical capability, secure information-sharing systems, political support, and sustainable funding. One successful operation does not automatically mean that PNG has fully institutionalized an effective national security system.

Nevertheless, progress should be acknowledged where it exists.

Too often, national discussions focus only on institutional failures while overlooking areas where gradual improvements are taking place. The emergence of the NSA and JIG framework suggests that PNG is beginning to move toward a more integrated national security approach — one that recognizes that modern security threats require coordination across agencies rather than isolated responses.

The next important question is how these national coordination mechanisms should evolve further. If intelligence-led coordination through the JIG is proving effective at the national level, how might similar approaches eventually strengthen security coordination at the provincial level?

That question will be explored in the next article in this series.