City residents flock to attend Ela Beach carols

By CLIFFORD FAIPARIK
CHRISTMAS Carols by Candlelight at Ela Beach on Sunday night was a big successes, with a large crowd turning up for the event, NCD governor Powes Parkop says.
“I urge city resident to always take extra precautions anyway and do not be intimidated and allow a few trouble makers to reign,” he said.
“We can be stronger if together we put efforts in containing issues of crime and violence in our city. We can do it and eventually they will give up and we will have the city we dream of. Never give in to the small minorities.”
“For all of our events in NCD, we are always sensitive to security concerns and for this particular event we deployed police, private security and the PNG Defence Force to ensure that no major incident occurred.”
Parkop said that both NCD and Central police commander Assistant Commissioner Donald Yamasombi and Metropolitan commander Superintendent Perou N’dranou were on top of security preparations during the event.
“Based on my conversations with them, I was told of a minor stone-throwing incident around the Koki area which was handled immediately by police,” the governor said.
“I haven’t heard of any hooliganism or any other major incident.
“Therefore, I would say, considering the 30,000-plus people who had a great time, it was an epic success.
We have received so many positive responses than negative, so I am motivated to make our nights safer and give our people more opportunities to enjoy night space in our city.