INFORMATION ABOUT OUR
“PAPUA NEW GUINEA POLICE CLEARANCE” SERVICE

Unfortunately sending your application direct to the PNG police by mail or courier doesn't work any more. The system has been broken for many years now but wrong information about applying by mail continues to be circulated by various websites and overseas Immigration departments. The phone numbers and email addresses printed on the police check application form no longer work so it is difficult to contact the police records office directly for updated information.
If you are currently outside PNG your best chance of getting a PNG police check is with the help of a local contact on the ground in Port Moresby, or a lodgement agency like ours.

When you pay our service fee you are paying for our knowledge of the system, our many years experience, our good professional relationships with the staff in the police records office, our help with preparing a decision-ready application, our time for standing in many long queues for you, and our careful handling and delivery of your certificate when it is ready.

ABOUT PNG POLICE CLEARANCES

If you have previously lived or worked in Papua New Guinea and are now applying for new employment or a visa to work or settle in another country, you may require a clearance certificate from the PNG police, otherwise known as a police records check or police character check.

Only the National Criminal Records Office (NCRO) in Port Moresby can issue PNG police clearance certificates that are recognised overseas.  Expatriate applications also require a name check on the Interpol watchlist and only the NCRO in Port Moresby has a satellite uplink to Interpol. Police clearance certificates issued by other police stations (eg Lae, Kokopo) are not accepted by police jurisdictions and immigration authorities in other countries. NCRO clearance certificates do not have any expiry date but most overseas police and immigration authorities will only accept certificates that are less than 1 year old.

Obtaining a PNG police clearance certificate from the NCRO in Port Moresby can be slow and difficult because their office has only a small number of staff trying to process up to 1000 new applications every week. 95% of applications are from local people needing police checks for employment, security passes, various licences and overseas travel.

Applying direct to the PNG police by mail or courier from overseas does not work any more for a number of reasons including problems with receiving and sending mail through the police mail system, and obtaining the necessary official Finance Department fee receipt to attach to the front of the application. This receipt can only be purchased by EFTPOS or credit card at the Finance Department cashier's counter at Waigani (cash, international bank cheques, wire transfers and Western Union payments all no longer  accepted) and the NCRO officers do not have the time or inclination to catch a bus to Waigani and stand in the line at the Finance cashier during their lunch break and use their own personal bank card to purchase receipts for overseas police check applicants who have mailed cash in an envelope.

Neither do they have the time to take printed certificates to the post office or DHL office to dispatch overseas when they have crowds of local people standing in front of them at the counter all day clamouring for their certificates.

Accordingly applications received by mail or courier without the proper fee receipt are no longer  processed despite information and instructions to the contrary printed on the application form and appearing on various  embassy websites. We have written to the PNG police, PNG Foreign Affairs and Australian Immigration to explain / complain about this but nobody seems to have done anything about it yet. 

To successfully obtain an expatriate police clearance from PNG currently requires yourself or another person to pay the application fee by EFTPOS card at the Finance cashier at Vulupindi Haus in Waigani Drive, Port Moresby, attach the receipt to the application and lodge the papers in person at the NCRO police records office any Thursday morning, obtain a lodgement receipt (custody ticket), then start coming back every Thursday afternoon and waiting for your name to be called (usually after three to four weeks). If you are a PNG citizen or former resident who has already left PNG and now living overseas, this is virtually impossible to arrange unless you have a contact or agent on the ground in Port Moresby who is able to do all this running round for you.
This is where PNG Document Services can step in and assist by lodging your application on your behalf and regularly following up until it is ready for collection.

ABOUT OUR LODGMENT SERVICE

We are currently the only professional agency handling PNG police checks and to date we have successfully obtained over 700 clearance certificates on behalf of our clients (both former expats and PNG nationals).

Our basic service fee / handling fee is AUD/NZ/CAD/USD $300 per application and this includes

• Providing expert information and advice on the process
• Screening your documents in advance to ensure your application is decision-ready
• Lodging your application in person at the NCRO counter and emailing you proof of lodgement
• Collecting your certificate when ready, checking it for errors and returning it for correction if required
• Emailing you a scanned soft copy of the police certificate and ensuring safe and reliable delivery of the original hard copy
• The priceless goodwill and professional service afforded our clients by Chief Inspector Wumber and his team at NCRO. Over the years we have developed a good working relationship with the officers and we enjoy their trust. They know we don’t entertain fraudulent applications and they know we don’t offer bribes. We have a solid track history of giving them pre-screened, decision-ready applications which saves them a lot of time and in return they often give us priority service at the counter and assist us with processing complex applications for clients with missing documents etc which we greatly appreciate.
• Providing update letters for you to forward to your Immigration case officer or potential employer while your police clearance is being processed, or to explain any delays
• Lodging a duplicate application for you if your first application is rejected or lost in the syetem by the PNG police

Delivery charges are extra and will be added to your invoice depending on which country your certificate will be delivered to.

We also charge an extra fee for drafting covering letters and sworn statements for former expatriate residents if you cannot provide a copy of your PNG visa and your passport from the time you lived in PNG.

Our success rate is 99% and the average processing time after lodgment is 4 weeks.

However the police do sometime experience system bottlenecks / processing delays due to staff shortage, building closures, power failures, equipment breakdown and misfiling/mishandling of application documents etc which can sometimes result in certificates taking 8-10 weeks to be printed. Occasionally, applications are even completely lost in their office and cannot be found and a duplicate application has to be submitted.

We mention this here to explain why we cannot make any guarantees about processing timelines and why we cannot offer a fast-track service even for urgent cases. Once your application has been lodged with the police we play no further role in the processing and all we can do is make regular follow-ups and politely "nag" the officers until your certificate is ready.

We recommend you apply early because there is no fast-track system even for urgent cases.

HOW TO ORDER

1. Send an email to png.document.services@gmail.com stating your nationality and your current country or state of residence and we will send you a quotation in your currency.

2. Upon receiving our quotation, make your payment (see quotation for details on methods of payment). We will then e-mail you the current application form and further instructions. Sorry but we require up-front payment.

3. Once you receive the application form and fingerprint instructions, fill in the form, get fingerprints done, and prepare copies of other required documents. We will give you detailed instructions on how to obtain fingerprints in your location.

4. You will then send scans or photos of your completed and prepared documents and fingerprints to us by e-mail for checking. The PNG police are very strict about the way the application documents are presented so this step averts later problems if we can identify potential issues before you send your hard copies.

5. If all your documents are correctly prepared then we will give you instructions on how to forward your hard copy documents to us.

6. On receiving your application package we will then pay the application fee at the government cashier in Waigani, attach the receipt and lodge your application at the PNG police records office (NCRO) in Gordons. Lodgements are every Thursday so we have to receive your docs by Wednesday.

7. We will keep following up on your application until a certificate is issued by the PNG police. Normally this takes about 4 weeks but sometimes longer when there are system bottlenecks. 

8. After collecting your certificate we will check it and send you a scan copy. If there are any spelling mistakes or other errors we will discuss with you about returning it to NCRO for reprinting. If the certificate seems correct we will forward you the hard copy original certificate.

ABOUT US

PNG Document Services is a Papua New Guinea based operation handling lodgment of applications for official documents from PNG like police checks, birth/death/marriage certificates, company registrations and business licences. We also conduct due diligence reference checks, background checks, credit checks, identity verifications and commercial in confidence research for prospective business investors.

We provide similar services for Solomon Islands, Nauru, Kiribati and other small South Pacific countries. Our director Aaron Hayes is an Australian consultant with many years business and professional experience in PNG and the Islands. And we're available 7 days a week to help you get what you need as quickly as possible.

To see some feedback from our previous customers please visit the following link:

https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/ShowTopic-g294115-i3592-k8913124-o20-How_can_I_quickly_get_a_PNG_police_clearance_certificate-Papua_New_Guinea.html