Singapore — Food guru and advocate for all things hawker, KF Seetoh shared that a hawker had planned to quit and close their stall permanently following NEA’s rental raise, leaving the stall-holder and his trainee out of a job.
In an earlier Facebook post last Friday (Jun 25), Mr Seetoh shared a letter released by the National Environment Agency (NEA) to a hawker where the revised rent was “almost 40 per cent” higher than before.
While the NEA on Saturday (Jun 26), tried to justify the move, adding that it had frozen rental increases from 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2021 and in 2021 provided hawkers support “in the form of two months of rental waivers and subsidies for table-cleaning and centralised dishwashing services”, Mr Seetoh wrote that the increase meant a lot to the hawker.
In another post on Monday (Jun 28), Mr Seetoh said that the issue was “about the timing and empathy, not the quantum nor the earlier well intended rent waivers”.
He noted that the hawker’s rental was being raised from S$800 to S$1100. Including service and conservancy charges, the hawker would have to pay S$1500 per month, Mr Seetoh wrote.
“the hawker said he will accept and “move on” which really meant they will quit and close permanently when the term ended”, he added.
Mr Seetoh also pointed out that because of the move, two Singaporeans would lose their jobs – the hawker and his young trainee who was being groomed to take over.
“I don’t know how many more hawkers were affected by this rule this last 12 months”, Mr Seetoh said.
In his previous post, the information of the rent had been redacted, but Mr Seetoh added that with the permission of the hawker he shared the amount of the raise.
On Saturday (Jun 26), Senior Minister of State for Sustainability and the Environment Amy Khor shared NEA’s post. She wrote: “Hawkers are the backbone of #OurHawkerCulture. We will continue to support them through this #Covid19 pandemic and beyond. Read NEA’s post below to understand how stall rentals are renewed after the typical tenancy of 3 years”. /TISG