Vivian charges WP with lying over hawker centre row

SINGAPORE — 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.

His comments came after the NEA and the WP-run town council both released documents yesterday which they said supported their respective accounts of the dispute.

The saga began last month when stall owners complained that they had to bear the cost of putting up scaffolding to clean high areas in the food centres, which sparked off a chain of accusations and rebuttals between the hawkers, the NEA and the town council.

Yesterday, Dr Balakrishnan said in a statement: “This is a completely unnecessary distraction caused by the AHPETC and its managing agent FMSS. All town councils have always done routine spring-cleaning of hawker centres. There is no excuse for the AHPETC to delay the current cleaning programme.”

He said it was also “arrogant and wrong” of Ms Lim to “make a political attack on NEA officers for simply doing their duty and for protecting the hawkers”.

Among the documents the NEA released yesterday was a quotation from AHPETC’s contractor ATL Maintenance to the hawkers of Block 538, which included separate payment for both the scaffolding and cleaning of the high areas.

This shows that the work “clearly falls within the responsibility of the town council itself”, the NEA said.

This was disputed by Ms Lim, who said the NEA’s assertion “flies in the face of logic” and the agency was “contradicting itself”.

The NEA also released letters between WP Member of Parliament Muhamad Faisal Abdul Manap, the Block 511 Hawkers’ Association and AHPETC, appealing for the town council to assist with the complete cleaning of the hawker centre.

It said that these letters “prove the seriousness and validity with which the MP treated the hawkers’ appeal”.

But Ms Lim said the letters “evidently show 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”.

She also maintained that the ATL quotation was given at the request of the hawkers, and pointed out that the NEA has not clarified whether the hawkers from both food centres were indeed asked by the AHPETC to pay extra for any cleaning.

“Attributing the quotation to AHPETC is misleading and politically motivated to tarnish the reputation of AHPETC,” she said.

The AHPETC also released a copy of an email from the NEA dated Feb 7, which the town council said it took “in good faith” to mean that the hawker association would make the necessary arrangements on the scaffolding for spring cleaning.

“I welcome the release of the documents by NEA so that the public can make their own judgment,” Ms Lim said.

In his 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 AHPETC then said it would bear these costs, but referred to an NEA email dated Feb 7, which the town council said it took “in good faith” to mean that the hawker association would make the necessary arrangements on the scaffolding for spring cleaning.

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”.