Many citizens have been questioning the Government regarding the rising costs to run a hawker stall. Running a hawker stall is not easy, hawkers have to put in the blood, sweat and tears, making use of recipes passed down from their family just so their consumers will enjoy the food. They usually start from wee hours in the morning. Why should NEA profit from their hard work?
Facebook user La Vie Est Belle rants:
"All these over-educated, over-thinking bureaucrats who are driven primarily by profit for themselves while shifting burdens to others, with unreasonable KPIs for others, are not leading anyone to any bright future. When making a good, rich soup or stew, one has to skim away the scum that floats to the top, leaving behind the good substance. Same with our hawker culture.
By the way, the word “hawkerpreneur” is stupidly redundant. Conjured up by people who have no real value to add? Hawkers are people who run small businesses and running a business is necessarily entrepreneurial. Might as well call businessmen businesspreneur.
“Is it fair to expect hawkers who have spent a lifetime teaching their children not to take after their profession (because it was seen as not socially mobile), to fund the training of a new generation of “hawkerpreneurs”?
If this Government wants more “hawkerpreneurs”, it should redouble its efforts. Do not shunt these responsibilities to hawkers under the guise of “social enterprise”.
Under the social enterprise model used by the National Environment Agency (NEA), the article stated that operating surpluses are to be shared among its stakeholders “such as the stallholders, the manager and the NEA”.
Why should NEA profit further from the blood, sweat and tears of the hawkers that they have left in the hands of private businessmen?
There are people who wish to become hawkers, no doubt. Adjust the rental charges and you will get your hawkers. It’s not rocket science.”
