In his latest statement, Dr Balakrishnan described the hawkers as “honest, hardworking people just trying to make a living” and that there was “no reason” to charge them more for cleaning the ceiling and disrupt their business.
“The hawkers have been consistent and truthful throughout this entire episode. Either Pritam Singh or the hawkers are telling the truth. It is obvious that the hawkers are speaking the truth,” he said.
Mr Singh, the AHPETC’s Vice-Chairman, had disputed the hawkers’ claim that they were asked to pay for the cost of putting up the scaffolding, maintaining that none of the town council staff told the stall owners to pay extra.
The spat over the cleaning of two food centres escalated yesterday with Environment and Water Resources Minister Vivian Balakrishnan accusing the Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council (AHPETC) of lying in giving its version of the dispute.
He also charged that Workers’ Party (WP) chairman Sylvia Lim was “arrogant and wrong” to make a “political attack” on National Environment Agency (NEA) officers.
In a media statement released yesterday evening (9 Jun), Dr Balakrishnan said this is a “completely unnecessary distraction caused by the Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council (AHPETC) and its managing agent FMSS.”
Dr Balakrishnan said hawkers are honest, hardworking people just trying to make a living and there is no reason to charge hawkers more for cleaning the ceiling.
His assertion came despite Ms Lim’s assurance of AHPETC not charging the hawkers extra for cleaning the ceiling of hawker centres.
Dr Balakrishnan, together with NEA, continued to back the hawkers’ side of the story. He said that the hawkers’ have been consistent and truthful throughout this entire episode, and “it’s obvious they are speaking the truth”.
NEA civil servants, he added, are duty-bound to “protect public hygiene and ensure hawkers are treated fairly”.
He asked AHPETC to cooperate with NEA, and consult closely with the hawkers and fulfill its obligations, despite AHPETC having already settled with NEA and the hawkers on the issue on 6 Jun [Link].
This is Ms Sylvia Lim's Official Press Statement yesterday:
NEA is Contradicting Itself
I welcome the release of the documents by National Environment Agency (“NEA”) so that the public can make their own judgment.
In response, we are also releasing, at Annex A, the email thread from NEA to Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council (“AHPETC”) stating that “the Hawkers Association will make the necessary arrangements with their contractors on the scaffold erection / dismantling during the spring cleaning period from 4 – 8 March 2013”.
Regrettably, NEA has not clarified whether the hawkers at Blk 511 Bedok North Street 3 (“Blk 511 Market”) and Blk 538 Bedok North Street 3 (“Blk 538 Market”) were asked by AHPETC to pay any additional charges for any cleaning. All NEA has is a quotation from the cleaning contractor ATL Maintenance Pte Ltd (“ATL”) addressed to the Market Association of Blk 538.
NEA should know that ATL is an independent commercial company free to provide quotations to any party that requests it. It was the Market Association of Blk 538 Market that requested the quotation, as confirmed by ATL’s media release on 6 June 2013. Attributing the quotation to AHPETC is misleading and politically motivated to tarnish the reputation of AHPETC.
I also urge NEA not to confuse the public on the events relating to Blk 538 and Blk 511, which are two separate matters.
The Blk 538 market incident was caused by NEA’s email of 7 Feb 2013. NEA had confirmed that the hawkers’ association would be providing the scaffolding which was not done for reasons unknown to us. In addition, any decision for market closure came from the hawkers’ association and not from the town council, as it was not needed by us.
The appeal letter by MP Faisal released by NEA pertained to Blk 511 Market, which is scheduled for cleaning at the end of June 2013 by the Market Association. Contrary to NEA’s portrayal, the letter evidently shows MP Faisal’s awareness that it was not the policy of AHPETC not to clean the high areas of the market during annual cleaning, nor to collect any additional charges from the hawkers; otherwise, MP Faisal would not have written to AHPETC to look into Mr Chan Kheng Heng’s claim.
NEA’s assertion in its statement flies in the face of logic. NEA is contradicting itself.
SYLVIA LIM
CHAIRMAN
ALJUNIED-HOUGANG-PUNGGOL EAST TOWN COUNCIL9 June 2013
Annex A – Email Correspondence between NEA and AHPETC
Former NSP Secretary-General Goh Meng Seng also said:
It is totally wrong for WP and AHTC to disclaim any responsibility from their contractor who tried to double charged the hawkers! They should have fired their contractor straight away for such dishonest act! This contractor is employed under AHTC to do the work and AHTC will have the assumed responsibility of its conduct and work ethics. "NEA should know that ATL is an independent commercial company free to provide quotations to any party that requests it. It was the Market Association of Blk 538 Market that requested the quotation, as confirmed by ATL’s media release on 6 June 2013. Attributing the quotation to AHPETC is misleading and politically motivated to tarnish the reputation of AHPETC." Very disappointed with Sylvia Lim when she puts this up in her statement. She claims that WP and AHTC works towards the interests of stallholders and public but apparently, this statement contradicts that claim... She, WP and AHTC would rather sit there and do nothing when their own contractor tries to double charge the hawkers for the job which is already paid by the Town Council! And the Town Council didn't do anything against the contractor when they refused to deliver the services as stated in their contract!
Both parties appeared to have reached an agreement on the issue after a meeting last Thursday, but the NEA issued a statement later on the same day saying the AHPETC had tried to get hawkers to pay extra cleaning costs, and then tried to “deflect blame” when that failed.
This prompted Ms Lim to say on Friday that the NEA’s comments were “puzzling and unprofessional as a government agency”, and that it was “politically motivated to tarnish the town council’s image”.
Meanwhile, while NEA and Balakrishnan continue to be busy “battling” with AHPETC over the cleaning saga as to who was right or wrong, more people are dying from dengue. Yesterday, a second person died from dengue fever at Tan Tock Seng Hospital. What do you think?