Debated in Parliament on 4 Feb 2013.
Mr Zainal Sapari asked the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources whether NEA will consider (i) managing the cleaning contracts of all hawker centres to ensure that these contracts are awarded only to NEA-accredited cleaning companies which support the Progressive Wage Model recommended by the Tripartite Cluster for Cleaning; and (ii) making it mandatory for non-NEA managed hawker centres to award cleaning contracts only to NEA-accredited cleaning companies; and (iii) establishing standard cleaning contract tender specifications that are modelled after NEA's cleaning contract tenders for NEA-managed hawker centres, for all hawker centres to adopt in their own tenders.
NEA currently manages the cleaning contracts for 25 hawker centres directly, while the respective Town Councils (TCs) and Hawkers' Associations (HAs) manage the cleaning contracts for the remaining 82 hawker centres. From 1 April 2013, new hawker centre cleaning contracts called by NEA will only be awarded to cleaning contractors accredited under the Enhanced Accreditation Scheme (EAS). The EAS requires the accredited companies to, among other conditions, adopt progressive wages for their local cleaners. This means that full-time local cleaners hired under the NEA's new contracts will be paid starting basic wages of at least $1,000 per month.
We are currently engaging the TCs and HAs to encourage them to appoint only accredited cleaning contractors for general cleaning and table cleaning activities respectively. We have also been sharing our cleaning contract tender specifications with the TCs and HAs and will continue to do so. We hope that the TCs and HAs will be able to see the value in engaging accredited cleaning companies which are able to meet the demands of the hawker centres.
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