Singapore – Makansutra founder KF Seetoh took to social media to criticise the National Environment Agency (NEA) for allegedly raising hawkers rent by almost 40 per cent amid trying times.
“Here we all are doing our best to ‘#supportourhawkers, and there they are at the same time raising the hawkers’ rent by almost 40 per cent,” wrote Mr Seetoh in a Facebook post published on Friday (Jun 25).
Mr Seetoh attached a letter released by NEA to a hawker with confidential information redacted.
In the letter, NEA was offering the hawker a renewal of their tenancy, with the terms and conditions laid out.
NEA had also indicated the revised rent, which Mr Seetoh noted was “almost 40 per cent” higher than before.
“Why, oh why I ask. You may need to claw back to top up the national coffers but do your leaders even know it’s a horrible timing to do so now,” said Mr Seetoh.
“This hawker had been languishing in sales this whole year,” he added.
Mr Seetoh explained that even with the current rule of two people allowed to dine in, things aren’t looking “rosy” for hawkers.
People are ordering online, and many are working from home – a seductive and convenient culture ingrained into us over the last year, and many offline hawkers are left to dry out, he noted.
“Top that up with this ‘professional valuers’ decree that rents must be raised now; it is another death knell for the #supportourhawkers movement,” Mr Seetoh admitted.
In a Facebook post published on Saturday (Jun 26), NEA appears to have addressed the matter by highlighting a “discussion online that NEA has increased a hawker’s stall rental by a significant percentage during this period.”
NEA clarified that the typical tenancy of hawker stalls is for three years and that the rental “is kept unchanged” throughout that period.
“The renewal of tenancy three years later will be based on prevailing market rates assessed by independent professional valuers,” said NEA.
The agency added that rentals upon renewal could be higher or lower; however, they have not exceeded S$300 in recent years.
“It is misleading to look at percentage increases alone as a S$300 increase from a low rental will appear as a large percentage increase,” said NEA.
In light of the Covid-19 period, NEA noted that rental increases were suspended from Apr 1, 2020, until Mar 31, 2021.
“In 2021, support has been provided to our hawkers in the form of two months of rental waivers and subsidies for table-cleaning and centralised dishwashing services,” NEA added.
The median monthly stall rental of non-subsidised cooked food stalls across all hawker centres is S$1,250, NEA noted.
“We believe this is competitive and significantly lower than stall rentals at commercially-operated coffeeshops and food courts.”
In a recent comment on his original post, Mr Seetoh said that NEA’s response was “all about policy and number plus percentages.”
“But the issue is, why even apply a raise to any one hawker now. Even one raise is one too many now.”
Mr Seetoh urged for “ground sensitivities” to be applied, especially for micro-businesses like hawkers.
“No ‘professional valuers’ need apply here. We need a big rethink for this industry,” he added./TISG
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