Assistance for Sungei Road Flea Market Vendors

Mr Kok Heng Leun asked the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources in light of the permanent closure of the Sungei Road flea market (a) how many of the vendors have been offered assistance and what kind of assistance has been rendered; and (b) how many vendors are not receiving these assistance and why are they not receiving them.

Mdm Speaker, the site where the Sungei Road Hawking Zone (SRHZ) is located will be used for ground preparation works to facilitate future residential development, and the last day of operation of the SRHZ will be 10 July 2017.

When the Government resettled street hawkers into markets and hawker centres in the early years, 31 rag-and-bone men were excluded from the resettlement due to their trade and were issued with permits to continue operating at the Sungei Road site. Of these 31 original permit holders, only 11 operate at SRHZ today.

My Ministry has offered the 11 original permit holders the option of operating lock-up stalls at selected hawker centres in the city area at subsidised rental rates after the closure of SRHZ. Rental will be waived for the first year and a 50% rebate off the subsidised rent will be given for the second year on a goodwill basis. Five of them have so far indicated interest to take up the offer.

The Social Service Offices (SSOs) and Workforce Singapore (WSG) have also offered to facilitate financial assistance and provide employment services to the 11 original permit holders should they wish to exit the trade. So far, one of them has been granted financial assistance. Further engagements between the SSOs and some of the remaining permit holders are ongoing.

The Government will also reach out to the other users at SRHZ who are not original permit holders in the coming months to share information on the financial and employment assistance available under existing Government schemes, as well as channels through which they can continue their trade should they wish to do so.

I thank the Minister for the detailed answers. May I know which agencies will be coordinating all this assistance to those who are not part of the original permit holders because, at the moment, I understand that no one has actually approached them?

Secondly, I also understand that the Association for the Recycling of Second Hand Goods had wanted to engage in a dialogue with the National Environment Agency (NEA) on alternative sites. However, there is no such dialogue at this moment. May I know why there is no such dialogue, and would NEA or the Ministry consider having conversations with them?

For the first question, Mdm Speaker, NEA will be the lead agency to coordinate with the other agencies, the Mayors, and also ask other Advisers who may be the Advisers in the constituencies where these hawkers live, so that if they approach them, they will know where to refer them to. For this, the lead agency will be NEA.

For the second question, I think we have to note that SRHZ does have a long history, from the 1930s. And for some Singaporeans, they hold strong memories. But, again, we must recognise there were really many places that have moved on and where street hawking was quite popular and even a common sight in the past. Over the years, in the 1970s and 1980s, many of them have moved on. They are now housed in our hawker centres as well as markets and I believe many of them have also done well.

Despite all these, we have retained SRHZ so that the original 31 rag-and-bone permit holders can continue their trade. But over the years, we have seen a fair number of others who have come to SRHZ. They were not the original 31. In fact, after so many years, only 11 are still operating there.

Now, despite all the disamenities and even the residents accommodating the hawkers for these many, many years, for example, the obstruction of public roads, storage of goods in public places, sometimes people sleeping around in the residential estates, we have continued to accommodate these until such time when the place would be required for development.

I am surprised that the Association for the Recycling of Second Hand Goods is surprised that we are moving on because we have been engaging everybody since 2012. We have already told them that when the time comes, notice would be given and we have to move on. So, the time has come and we have engaged enough and I think to meet them again is to almost promise that we will change our stance and that redevelopment would not start.

I empathise with the pleading of our Member. I think we may stand to lose something which is very important or memorable for some of us. But then, again, we also have to balance this with the needs of our country and to be fair to the many, many other hawkers who have moved on, gone to markets. And for those who need to peddle their wares occasionally, they have also been able to do well in trade fairs where they pay for the rents and are well-managed so that the disamenities mentioned do not exist.

So, if the question is: are there alternatives? There are alternatives. But should we put up another site like this which is deemed to be like Sungei Road but not at Sungei Road, I do not think this is something we want to dwell on further.