Singapore — Hawker rights champion K F Seetoh, sharing a Facebook post by a lawyer in London that read “All those people panic buying, make sure you stock up on contraceptives/condoms, so you don’t produce any more idiots”, has added to the insult by saying: “You should also slap your parents for not using it!”
In comments on Facebook on Tuesday (March 17), the founder of Makansutra, a food consultancy, said to those panic buying: “Eh, just buy what you need. Malaysia dun supply a big chunk of our needs la.”
Seetoh pointed out that not all of Singapore’s produce came from Malaysia and that Singaporeans need not be worried that their source be completely cut off because of the two-week lockdown there.
On Monday night (March 16), Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin announced the lockdown following a sharp spike in the number of Covid-19 cases. Shortly after, many supermarkets in Singapore were seen to have long queues.
Seetoh wrote: “For starters, 80% of of our chickens come from Brazil and Argentina hor. And vegetable and fruits come from all over the world … China, Thailand, Australia, Korea, Indonesia (where we get a lot of our pork from oso).”
He added that, contrary to popular belief, most of Singapore’s seafood arrives “frozen from aeroplanes at Changi hor, driven to Jurong then slopped on the floor”.
“Tak percaya?” (Don’t believe?), he asked.
He added that, even in times of crisis, there are always opportunities. He wrote: “Supplies since two months back have steadily gone up … as much as 50%. One hawker has not choice but to raise her bowl of rice to 70 cents, from 50 previously.”
“So supplies are still there, but at what price, that’s another story,” he added. /TISG