Existing hawkers pissed off with NEA “no-minimum bid” scheme
The National Environment Agency’s “no-minimum bid” scheme was introduced to encourage more new and younger food hawkers to join the trade by making rentals cheaper. However, existing hawkers are the ones that feeling the brunt of this new policy.
Probably the only hawker blogger in Singapore wrote,
“What NEA possibly didn’t quite anticipate was the reaction of the market. After the market got over the shock, many realized that they could bid as low as possible for a stall. In April, a stall in Taman Jurong received an S$88 bid; even crazier, someone bidded for a stall in Ang Mo Kio for just S$1!
…Fellow hawkers I speak to are extremely upset about this issue. Hell, I’m really pissed as well. There’s a bid for a neighbouring hawker stall in Chinatown Complex that, if successful, would go for S$400/month. That’s cheaper than even subsidized rents in the same area! I’ll be paying four times that amount for my stall, and it’s just a stall just a few stalls down the row.”
That’s the result of the straight A’s student on scholarship policy making decision which is so detached from the real world.
May 23, 2012