NEA's reply:
This is a full version of NEA's reply issued to the media agency; published in The Straits Times, 22 Oct 2018.
We agree with Mr Elvin Ong and Mr Goh Boon Kai that the objective of our hawker centres is to provide good affordable food for patrons and a means to make a decent livelihood for hawkers.
Our incumbent hawkers have a median age of 60 years, and we need to attract new entrants to ensure sustainability of the hawker trade. Recognising that the hawker trade faces renewal, manpower and productivity challenges, extensive consultations were carried out with a wide range of stakeholders, including many in the F&B industry. This culminated in the Hawker Centres Public Consultation Panel’s recommendation for new hawker centres to be operated on a not-for-profit basis by social enterprises or cooperatives. It is envisaged that these socially-conscious enterprises (SE) would leverage their expertise in F&B and lease management, and introduce new ideas and innovative practices to achieve the social mission of hawker centres. For the model to work, the operators have some flexibility to employ different business strategies, with the authorities setting certain key parameters such as control on food prices and favouring bidders with lower total cost to stallholders.
Hence three years ago, the National Environment Agency (NEA) started piloting the model by appointing SEs to manage the first two new hawker centres. Since then, five more centres have started operations, the last two being this year. These are seven out of 114 hawker centres in Singapore. The operators are to ensure access to affordable food prices, maintain high standards of cleanliness, enhance the vibrancy of the hawker centres, and introduce productive measures to help hawkers cope with manpower constraints. As pointed out by Mr Ong, “What Singaporeans want is affordable food in a clean and comfortable environment”, these objectives have been largely met in the seven new hawker centres. New hawker centres take time to establish themselves. The operators have also introduced measures to increase foot-fall and enhance the vibrancy of the centres, benefitting both the stall-holders and patrons. These include lunchtime shuttle services to bring patrons to the centres, family-friendly weekend activities, and special offers for senior citizens. Other innovative ideas include “hawker-preneurship” programmes to attract and mentor new hawkers.
The recent discussions have centred on the cost and contractual terms of stall-holders. We are studying the feedback carefully, and will work with operators to address the stall-holders’ concerns. We will continue to improve the social enterprise model, including reviewing the contractual agreements and prescribing some of the terms used by operators in these contracts.
Beyond cost and manpower issues, a key challenge is the long hours and hard work. The operators overcome this by introducing centralised productivity measures, which the hawkers on their own are ill-equipped to do. These include centralised dishwashing with tray return and epayment services, which help raise productivity and enable hawkers to focus on their cooking. This creates a cleaner environment, and also reduces the need to employ a separate dish-washer, which is both a manpower and cost issue for stall-holders.
The management model for new hawker centres is not perfect. NEA will not hesitate to take operators to task if they are found to be errant. Its implementation is still at its early stage, and we should give it time to evolve. NEA will continue to take in feedback and work with the operators to provide good and affordable food for Singaporeans, while ensuring that our hawkers can earn a decent living so that the hawker trade and culture can be sustained.
Ivy Ong (Ms)
Director, Hawker Centres Division
National Environment Agency