HAWKER LICENCES (Criteria)

Mr Yeo Choo Kok asked the Minister for the Environment whether his Ministry will consider the issuing of hawker licences on the basis of culinary skills instead of the present criteria of hardship and age limit.

The Minister for the Environment (Mr Ong Pang Boon): Mr Speaker, Sir, my Ministry does not issue any more new licences for people to operate in Government or Statutory Boards' food centres, except to a few who are in financial hardship and unable to take up other gainful employment. Vacant stalls in these food centres are reserved for the resettlement of street hawkers. There are still some 2,300 street hawkers comprising 1,450 cooked food, 310 market produce and 540 piece and sundry goods hawkers who must be resettled into proper premises for environmental and public health reasons.

The policy to resite all street hawkers into proper premises was implemented in 1970. All new markets and food centres built by the Ministry of the Environment (MOE) and HDB are reserved for this purpose. The HDB also reserved some stalls in its markets and food centres to resettle shopkeepers and farmers in lieu of alternative premises or cash compensation. Some 23,200 street hawkers have been resited since 1970.

With the completion of the cooked food centres at Kreta Ayer, Church Street, Amoy Street and Hill Street, another 1,170 street hawkers will be resited, leaving a balance of 1,130 hawkers on the street. As land will not be made available for the construction of cooked food centres in the central business core areas, alternative means will have to be found to resite these hawkers. My Ministry and the Ministry of National Development will be looking into various alternatives, including the conversion of vacant market produce stalls in existing MOE and HDB markets into cooked food stalls.

Our priority, therefore, is in the resiting of street hawkers into the limited number of existing stalls. We are aware though of the growing tendency amongst the public to patronize stalls with accomplished culinary skills to the extent that people travel long distances to patronize their favourite food centres. Today, the business of selling cooked food is no longer a means to eke out a livelihood, but it is a business as lucrative as any other for those with special culinary skills. We see culinary skills as our heritage. However, in view of the priority we have to give to the resiting of street hawkers, the question of issuing more licences based on culinary skills would have to be considered later. Meanwhile, those with culinary skills and who wish to sell cooked food can rent a stall in a coffee shop or other private food establishments.

Mr Jeyaretnam: Mr Speaker, Sir, may I ask the Hon. Minister what is the policy of his Ministry as regards the location of these street hawkers which, he says, is their first priority? Is it the policy of the Ministry to try and site them as near as possible to where they have been carrying on their street hawking trades, or is it the policy to send them out into the new towns?

Mr Ong Pang Boon: Mr Speaker, Sir, the present policy is to resite the street hawkers in the nearest food centre available.

Mr Jeyaretnam: The second question for the Minister is: would he be good enough to tell the House what are the criteria of hardship that the Ministry takes into account when they grant new licences?

Mr Ong Pang Boon: Mr Speaker, Sir, a recipient of public assistance is one example.