Market users create problems for security guards

Maintaining peace and order in markets is a big challenge, a security manager says.
“Problems we come across everyday are all related to either sellers or customers,” Boroko Market security manager Kelly Omo Eremosele said.
Guards at the Boroko, Gerehu and Waigani markets told The National yesterday that their biggest challenge was to maintain peace among the vendors who competed with each other on food prices to market space.
“We have our share of pickpockets and bag-snatchers but these are not serious as we always get things under control,” Eremosele said.
He said there was a time when the market security was chaotic because of pay cuts. But with the securities’ new management, everything was in order and the guards are dedicated to their work.
Kaka Karota, one of the guards at Boroko Market, said it was the people’s ignorance of simple rules that gave the guards headaches.
“We have a ban on betel nuts and cigarette-smoking but betel nuts and cigarette sellers still sell along the market boundaries,” he said.
Danny Gori, a guard at Gerehu and Waigani markets, said sellers always started arguments among themselves and chose the market to sort it out.
The guards have to take them to the police station sometimes.