Workers' Party lying about hawker centre cleaning: Govt

SINGAPORE — The Government yesterday twice accused the Workers’ Party (WP) of lying about the cleaning of hawker centres in its ward, and called on the opposition to be transparent on the issue and clean up its act in an extraordinary admonishment in Parliament and online.

The WP-run Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council (AHPETC) was accused of asking hawkers for extra money to clean the high areas of hawker centres — a charge it has repeatedly denied — even though town councils are obliged to do so once a year without imposing additional costs on the hawkers.

This is the third time that the Government has accused the WP of lying over the matter.

Last month, Environment and Water Resources Minister Vivian Balakrishnan first charged in a media statement that the AHPETC was lying in its version of the protracted dispute.

Yesterday, he fired another volley at the integrity of the WP during a 30-minute terse exchange in Parliament with AHPETC Chairman Sylvia Lim. Hours later, he hit out again, posting on Facebook that Ms Lim and fellow Aljunied GRC Member of Parliament Pritam Singh were “false and untruthful” in their denials. This time, he noted that the WP MPs remained silent.

He also said he wanted to pursue the matter because the “core issue” of integrity was at stake and he challenged WP chief Low Thia Khiang to investigate the matter and “put things right” in the town council.

During the exchange in Parliament — where Mr Low also waded in and described the matter as a “misunderstanding” — Dr Balakrishnan handed out a dossier of documents with evidence backing his allegations and stressed that the issue was “not about cleanliness of the ceiling, it is about clean politics”.

Urging the WP to admit its mistake, Dr Balakrishnan said: “Politics is a contest for power but the key principle when you have power is, don’t take advantage of people under your charge, and always be honest and upfront with them. All of us will make mistakes. When a mistake is made, just come clean and say so but don’t cover up. That’s why I have not let this go.”

The exchange in the House began when Dr Balakrishnan rose to respond to a question tabled by Nee Soon GRC MP Lee Bee Wah on the role of town councils in cleaning and maintaining hawker centres under their charge.

The minister said that spring cleaning was done by hawkers once every three months while town councils are responsible for conducting and paying for an annual cleaning, including for high areas such as ceilings, beams and exhaust ducts. He then cited a quotation issued by ATL Maintenance — AHPETC’s contractor — to the hawkers at Block 538 Bedok North, billing them S$7,200 as payment.

He also read out statements which AHPETC Property Manager Tai Vie Shun made during meetings with National Environment Agency (NEA) officials and the hawkers.

Mr Tai had said that the additional cost of cleaning areas above the height of 2.5m “should be borne by the hawkers’ association instead of the Town Council”.

Alluding to the public denials by Ms Lim and Mr Singh, Dr Balakrishan said: “(Mr Tai) is the property manager of (AHPETC), so what he says, those words have to be taken seriously. What he says is the position of the town council, and you have asked for money, you have denied responsibility.”

He noted that the rules for town councils to pay for annual cleaning of hawker centres under their charge have been around for a decade.

“We are not inventing new rules here,” he said.

A misunderstanding: WP

In response, Ms Lim said that Dr Balakrishnan had made “very serious allegations against myself and Pritam Singh’s integrity”.

She added that Mr Tai’s comments were made in the context of a spring cleaning, instead of an annual cleaning, and the quotation was requested by the hawkers’ association.

Ms Lim said: “Does the minister not agree that … nowhere is the town council implicated in this quotation? It is a quotation issued by a commercial company.”

Supporting her assertions, Mr Low said that the quotation had “nothing to do with the town council”. He said: “It is a puzzle and I’m trying to find out who asked them to quote … What happened, I don’t know. But I’m very certain the quotation has nothing to do with the cost of the cleaning of the high areas of the market.”

Still, Dr Balakrishnan repeatedly pressed Ms Lim on her response to the fact that Mr Tai had asked the stall-owners on three occasions this year — on March 8, April 26 and April 28 — to pay extra for the hawker centres’ high areas to be cleaned.

For example, based on notes of a meeting attended by NEA officials, AHPETC representatives and members of the hawker association for Block 538, Mr Tai informed NEA and the hawkers that “AHPETC would not clean areas above 2.5m, and if the hawkers wanted those cleaned, they would have to pay the extra cost of doing so”, Dr Balakrishnan said.

On April 26, during a meeting with NEA officials and representatives of the hawker association of Block 511, Mr Tai “again asserted that the AHPETC would not be cleaning the high areas of the centre and that such costs had to be borne by the hawkers”, Dr Balakrishan said.

But Ms Lim insisted that it was “still the consistent position of our town council that Mr Tai, at no time, said the hawkers had to pay extra to fulfil the town council’s annual obligation to clean the high areas”.

Mr Low added: “What I gather from the whole episode is (it arose) from a misunderstanding between ‘annual cleaning’ and ‘spring cleaning’ ... I’ve not spoken to Mr Tai and this is the first time I’m reading all these things (in the dossier), but I gather that’s how it came about — because of the spring cleaning.”

When TODAY contacted ATL Maintenance, an employee said that his boss was “out of town” and could not respond to media queries. The WP could not be reached for comment.

Writing on Facebook after the Parliament session, Dr Balakrishnan said: “Ms Sylvia Lim acknowledged that this was a very grave charge, but then she beat around the bush, and claimed confusion between spring and annual cleaning. But how can she, on the one hand, claim that the Town Council never asked for more money; and then, on the other hand, maintain that this was spring and not annual cleaning, i.e. the Town Council was justified to ask for more money?”

He added: “Mr Pritam Singh sat conspicuously silent throughout the proceedings. Mr Low Thia Kiang argued that it was all ‘a misunderstanding’. But interestingly he did not strongly defend the Town Council’s actions, or Ms Lim and Mr Singh’s public denials.”

Dr Balakrishnan said that after he urged Mr Low to conduct “a full investigation and clean up his Town Council”, he was surprised that “Mr Low, Ms Lim and Mr Singh all chose to remain silent, and raised no further questions or objections, and so the debate in Parliament ended”.

The minister added that “many well-intended people” advised him not to pursue the matter. “It was too mundane, and people wanted to move on. But I felt duty-bound to resolve this matter, because it goes far beyond clean ceilings,” he said.