WP MP Leon Perera calls for lower rents for hawkers, creation of hawker academy and Hawkers' Day

Customers queue up to buy food at Tiong Bahru Market on July 22, 2021. ST PHOTO: CHONG JUN LIANG

SINGAPORE - Set rents at lower levels for hawkers and create a hawker academy to protect and professionalise the trade, said Mr Leon Perera (Aljunied GRC) on Tuesday (Aug 3).

The Workers' Party MP's suggestions were part of a broader call to do more to preserve and promote Singapore's hawker culture and heritage.

In a speech before Parliament adjourned, Mr Perera also asked to provide hawkers with Covid-19 support and introduce a Hawkers' Day on Dec 16 - the day Singapore hawker culture was added to the Unesco Intangible Cultural Heritage list.

He said: "The policy ecosystem has to instil confidence among hawkers that there is a longer-term commitment from the Government to ensuring stable pro-hawker policies.

"Policies that seem to go against this commitment, like raising rents, even if only for a small number of stalls during a pandemic... do nothing to instil confidence."

In June, there was online furore when food consultant and hawker champion K. F. Seetoh said on Facebook that a hawker stall's rent would be raised by almost 40 per cent.

Mr Perera said rents are negotiated in social enterprise hawker centres, with an average rental per stall of about $2,000 per month. For hawker centres under the National Environment Agency (NEA), non-subsidised rents range from $640 to $3,900.

NEA hawkers bid to run a stall for an initial period, before the rent is adjusted up or down depending on a professional valuation that considers footfall, location and market conditions, he added.

"In setting rents for public hawker centres... we should err on the side of being too low rather than being too high," Mr Perera said.

He argued that Singapore should also move away from tendering for stalls in NEA hawker centres.

"While it is said that tendering can result in extremely low rents, it does create uncertainty and can be a barrier to entry. Very low rents that may occasionally emerge from tendering also subject the hawker to a shock when the rents get raised," he said.

Mr Perera called for rents to be set at lower levels for NEA and social enterprise hawker centres, with "reasonable variations based on location, footfall and food type".

Responding, Senior Minister of State for Sustainability and the Environment Amy Khor said rentals are more affordable at NEA centres, with the median monthly rental of non-subsidised stalls about $1,250.

She attributed this to policies like doing away with the minimum bid price at tenders, and said doing so ensures hawkers can earn a decent livelihood while selling food at affordable prices.

The social enterprise hawker centre model is "working well" and has high average occupancy rates at 98 per cent in June this year, with very little turnover, she said.

She added that operating costs, including rentals, are on a par with comparable centres.

Social enterprise hawker centres have to ensure each stall sells at least one item at $3 or less.

Mr Perera also called for low-income Singaporeans to be given discount cards, rather than requiring stalls to keep prices low.

He also asked about schemes to support hawkers through Covid-19.

Dr Khor said during this period of tightened measures, eligible stallholders receive rental relief, among other initiatives.

Mr Perera also spoke about raising the status of hawkers, for instance, by creating a permanent pool of hawker ambassadors to help navigate the digital world and understand government schemes.

He also suggested setting up a hawker academy as a one-stop shop for training.

To promote hawker culture abroad, he added that agencies like Enterprise Singapore can support promising hawkers in overseas expansion.

Dr Khor said 376 participants have undergone a hawkers' development programme started last year, and 96 were mentored by experienced hawkers.

She added that there are support schemes for hawkers to adopt online food delivery, which is not a silver bullet, but can help them boost revenues.

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