When Singapore banned dining in from 16 May due to a surge in Covid-19 cases, our hawkers faced dire straits again.
With reduced customer footfall as many stay at home, those who couldn’t offer home delivery risked bleeding money.
Thankfully, some help is coming. For May and Jun, hawkers will have to pay only half their rental.
They also won’t have to pay for table-cleaning and dishwashing services during the no dine-in period.
The good news was announced on Facebook by Dr Amy Khor, Senior Minister of State for Sustainability and the Environment, on Saturday (22 May).
This will benefit 6,000 cooked food stallholders in hawker centres managed by the National Environment Agency (NEA) or its appointed operators.
The waivers will cost the Government a total of $5.5 million, Dr Khor added.
However, it’s obviously worth it for hawkers, as a 50% rental waiver for 2 months will amount to 1 month’s worth of free rental.
Even new stallholders who start their tenancies only on 1 Jun will get the waiver.
However, they’ll just get a half-month waiver for the month of Jun.
On top of the cut in rent, hawkers will be helped further will their bills.
They won’t have to pay for table-cleaning and centralised dishwashing services as long as the no dine-in rule applies in Singapore.
The NEA will fully subsidise these fees, Dr Khor said.
This will cost the Government a further $3.3 million.
That means our hawkers will receive help totalling about $8.8 million.
Watch her video here:
Dr Khor acknowledged that hawkers’ businesses have been affected again by the Covid-19 measures.
She thus thanked them for staying open and continuing to serve us.
The Hong Kah North MP also urged Singaporeans to support them by patronising their stalls through takeaways or food delivery.
Hopefully, the waivers will help hawkers reduce their operating expenses so they can continue their businesses.
The timely and much-needed help shows that the NEA does understand the troubles of hawkers trying to survive amid the pandemic.
Let’s do our part by again following the rules so we can hopefully stop this latest rise in community cases and go back to dining out again.
Have news you must share? Get in touch with us via email at hello@mustsharenews.com.
Featured image adapted from Facebook.
The announcement was made during this year's Tourism Industry Conference.
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