It was reported that the National Environment Agency (NEA) will pay half of hawkers' dish-washing fees next year and 30 per cent the year after (Subsidies for social enterprise hawkers; Nov 17).

How long will NEA be helping these hawkers?

Considering that NEA would have deliberated this very carefully before deciding on providing subsidies, this would mean that the operating costs incurred by hawkers in the social enterprise hawker centres have escalated quite a bit compared with those managed by NEA, and are expected to increase.

It appears that this move is a reactive response to the issues that are currently being highlighted, but the implications could be serious if NEA were to provide subsidies to all the new social enterprise hawker centres.

Foo Kwang Sai