Debated in Parliament on 10 Jan 2017.
Mr Leon Perera asked the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources (a) whether it is compulsory for wet market stallholders to display their prices prominently; (b) if so, how does the Ministry enforce this; and (c) how many stallholders have been found to be in breach of such regulations over the past five years.
The Senior Minister of State for the Environment and Water Resources (Dr Amy Khor Lean Suan) (for the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources): Currently, all stallholders are required to display their prices as part of their licence conditions. Where it is not feasible to indicate fixed prices, stallholders can also indicate a price range instead. In 2016, in response to feedback, the National Environment Agency (NEA) issued verbal advisories to more than 110 market stallholders to display their prices and most of the stallholders had cooperated.
We recognise that many wet market stalls may face difficulty in displaying their prices as the prices of market produce may fluctuate on a daily basis and are currently looking into revising this requirement.
Regardless of the requirement, it is a good practice for stallholders to be transparent about their prices so that consumers will have greater peace of mind when patronising them and can make more informed choices.
I thank the Senior Minister of State for the detailed answer. Would the Ministry consider a campaign to put up posters in some of these wet markets to educate consumers that stallholders are expected to display these prices and perhaps to have a hotline number they can call, if there are stallholders who are consistently not displaying prices?
Indeed, at these wet markets and hawker centres, we do have place managers there to monitor. Anyone is free to contact us to give us feedback on the display of food prices and any other issue with regards to hawker centres.
I do wish to highlight that we do understand that for market stalls, there are challenges for them in fulfilling this requirement. As I had said, for some stalls, in particular, where they are selling market produce and if the prices fluctuate on a daily basis, it is quite difficult. We have engaged them and advised them that they could display a price range instead, which would also comply with the requirements. Clearly, we will do more, in terms of reaching out and educating them through our place managers, too.
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