‘NEA politically motivated to tarnish town council’s image,’ says Sylvia Lim

SINGAPORE — A day after the Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council (AHPETC) reached an agreement with the National Environment Agency (NEA) on the dispute over the cleaning of two hawker centres in Bedok North, the saga has taken another turn.

Making her first public comments on the spat yesterday, Ms Sylvia Lim, Chairman of the Workers’ Party-run town council, accused the NEA of being “politically motivated” to “tarnish” the town council’s image.

On Thursday, the NEA said the AHPETC had tried to get hawkers to pay extra cleaning costs, and then tried to “deflect blame” when that failed — a comment Ms Lim said was “puzzling and unprofessional as a government agency”.

In response, the NEA said: “The NEA stands by the accounts provided by the hawkers of Blocks 511 and 538 Bedok North Street 3.”

The war of words began last month after it was reported that some hawkers said they had been told by the AHPETC that they had to pay for the cost of putting up scaffolding to clean high areas in the hawker centres, which they said differed from past practice.

The NEA then stepped in, saying it was the responsibility of the town council to bear these costs. The AHPETC later announced it would bear these costs, but referred to an NEA e-mail dated Feb 7, which the town council took “in good faith” to mean that the hawker association would make the necessary arrangements on the scaffolding for spring cleaning.

Ms Lim maintained the town council’s account of events and reiterated that neither its staff nor its contractors had approached any stallholders for extra charges.

“All cleaning contractors employed by AHPETC are well aware of its obligation under the contract to clean the high areas of all the markets under AHPETC management at least once a year. Anyone who is interested is welcome to inspect the contracts,” she said. Ms Lim also said it had investigated the claim that hawkers were told to pay more for cleaning, and found it to be “baseless”.

“It is regrettable that our attempts to resolve the issue amicably have not been reciprocated, with the government taking the opportunity to point fingers at AHPETC,” she said, adding that “the public can judge for itself”.