Conservancy charges, temporary occupational licence fees to be waived for 8 markets and food centres hit by Covid-19

SINGAPORE — Stalls in eight markets and food centres that were closed because of Covid-19 will have their service and conservancy charges as well as temporary occupational licence fees waived, said Mr Lim Biow Chuan on Saturday (July 31). 

The coordinating chairman for the 15 People's Action Party (PAP) town councils said eight markets and food centres managed by PAP-run town councils were identified as coronavirus clusters.

The affected markets and food centres were required to close for two weeks to break the chain of transmission and allow deep cleaning of the premises.

The markets and food centres are: 

Source: PAP town councils

"Many of these stallholders are our residents and these mandatory closures have impacted their livelihoods," Mr Lim, who is also Member of Parliament for Mountbatten, said in a statement. 

"They have been serving our communities and we empathise with them on the impact of such closures to their businesses." 

To support the stallholders, seven town councils in charge of the eight markets and food centres have decided to waive their service and conservancy charges as well as temporary occupational licence fees for the period of closures. 

About S$70,000 has been waived for 1,076 stallholders. This is in addition to the support given by the Government to the market and hawker stallholders. 

"We hope this will provide some form of financial relief to our stallholders to help them cope with the challenges brought upon by the closures," said Mr Lim. 

Last week, the Ministry of Health said that it was investigating Covid-19 cases involving markets and food centres that were likely seeded by fishmongers who visited Jurong Fishery Port to collect their stock and sell at these markets and food centres.

As of Friday, 999 coronavirus cases were linked to the Jurong Fishery Port cluster. CNA

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