Flurry of questions on hawker centres when Parliament sits on Monday

SINGAPORE — Hawker centres and food court operators will take centre stage when Parliament sits on Monday (Nov 19), with 21 questions filed on the topic by Members of Parliament (MPs).

Questions have also been filed on the recent death of a full-time National Serviceman, asking the status of investigations and how many serious vehicular accidents there have been in the past three years.

Corporal First Class Liu Kai, 22, was killed on Nov 3 in a field training exercise at Jalan Murai, near Lim Chu Kang, when a Bionix armoured vehicle reversed into the Land Rover he was in.

On hawker centres, MPs who have filed questions for the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources include Ms Cheryl Chan (Fengshan), Mr Liang Eng Hwa (Holland-Bukit Timah), Mr Melvin Yong (Tanjong Pagar) and Non-Constituency MP Dennis Tan.

Ms Chan is asking what factors the ministry considers before deciding to outsource the management of a hawker centre to a private company. She also wants to know if there is a timeline to measure the effectiveness of a model that is being tested.

Mr Liang is asking whether the total cost of running a hawker stall under the social enterprise-run model has been significantly higher than at centres run by the National Environment Agency.

Mr Yong has tabled a question on the number of hawker stalls that are paying rental of S$10,000 or more per month.

Allegations of poor management practices as well as high rentals and auxiliary costs at social enterprise-run hawker centres have hogged the headlines in recent weeks, not long after Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced at the National Day Rally that the Republic is eyeing a spot for its hawker culture on the Unesco’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Questions have also been tabled on NTUC Enterprise looking to buy over food centre operator Kopitiam by the end of the year for an undisclosed sum.

The sale is subject to regulatory approval and other conditions, and will bring Kopitiam’s 80 establishments including food courts and hawker centres, under NTUC Enterprise’s fold.

Mr Tan is asking if the proposed acquisition will result in substantial lessening of competition and if it will be suspended pending approval from the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore.

Other questions posed by MPs include the liabilities for employers when foreign domestic workers default on repayment of loans from licensed moneylenders.

Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan will also be delivering a ministerial statement on the 2018 review of foreign policy.

Parliament sits at noon on Monday, according to the order paper published on its website.