Connecting with residents in a community is a crucial aspect of any politician as they need to know their problems and residents need to know them. For Teck Whye residents, Saturday (12 Dec) was a chance to meet the Health Minister Gan Kim Yong for a chit-chat session.
However, one portion of the poster for the chit-chat session in Teck Whye motivated some curiosity.
For the chit-chat session, residents would have to pay $1.
The $1, at first glance, could look like Mr Gan was charging residents a fee to talk to him.
However, Chua Chu Kang Community Club clarified that the $1 fee wasn’t for profit, but went into paying for the souvenirs, food, and logistics.
The chit-chat session was held on Saturday (12 Dec) and residents would be able to talk to Mr Gan.
Mr Gan is the Grassroots Adviser for Chua Chu Kang and an MP of Chua Chu Kang Group Representative Constituency (GRC).
The idea was that residents would get to raise issues they have on both a municipal and national level, while Mr Gan can share what might be in store for them through Government schemes.
But some online felt that the $1 fee appeared as though the minister was charging people to ‘chit-chat’ with him.
One of them was Lim Tean, Peoples Voice leader.
Chua Chu Kang Community Club (CCK CC) took to Facebook to clarify the fee.
They said that the fee went into logistics, souvenirs, and food and there were no profits made.
Normally there’d be souvenirs and food to encourage residents to come, the latter perhaps in the form of breakfast.
However, CCK CC said that the organisers decided not to provide breakfast due to safe distancing measures.
Instead, attendees were given 10 eggs as a thanks for coming to the session.
A packet of 10 eggs would cost at least $1.60 from Sheng Siong, so we’d say that attendees actually profited from turning up. And that’s not even including the door gift.
Plus, they get to talk to someone who’s taking care of their estate and share their issues.
The fee isn’t for profit and we agree that it’d be wrong for any grassroots community to make money from activities like these.
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Featured image adapted from Facebook and Google Maps.
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