Action will be taken against food court operators "found to be errant": Senior Minister Amy Khor

Action will be taken against food court operators that are "found to be errant" by the National Environment Agency, according to Senior Minister of State for the Environment and Water Resources Amy Khor.Dr Khor wrote in her Facebook post on Friday (19 Oct) that the Government has been paying attention to "the concerns raised" regarding "social enterprise hawker centres," particularly "on the issues of cost and contractual terms used by operators."https://www.facebook.com/AmyKhorPage/posts/2254567281220367Noting that "NEA is working closely with operators and hawkers to address these issues," she added: "I have asked NEA to quickly iron out the problems and to do a stock-take of the Social Enterprise model."On top of taking operators "to task if they are found to be errant," Dr Khor said that part of the measures taken by NEA to curb unscrupulous practices among food court operators is "reviewing the contractual agreements with the view to prescribe some of the terms used by operators in these contracts."She added: "We will continue to fine-tune the management model, to safeguard the interests of Singaporeans - patrons and hawkers - and achieve the objective of ensuring that Singaporeans have access to affordable food and hawkers can make a decent living."Other measures, wrote Dr Khor, include "setting controls on food prices, assessing operators whose bids offer the lowest total cost to stall-holders more favourably, and ensuring that operators cannot increase stall rentals during the tenancy period."Dr Khor reasoned that such measures are taken to "ensure that Singaporeans continue to have access to affordable food in clean environments, and that our hawkers can earn a decent living," adding that the Government had "started piloting this management model some 3 years ago, with the last 2 hawker centres only opening this year."She further wrote: "We have started building new hawker centres to ensure residents have access to affordable food."Having social enterprises run 7 of our new hawker centres is one of the ways we are trying, to address the many challenges of the hawker trade such as renewal and manpower constraints, and at the same time meet the evolving dining needs of residents."Some flexibility is given to these enterprises to try out different ideas and innovative practices, to bring about vibrancy in our hawker centre scene, and benefit both patrons and hawkers," wrote Dr Khor.Closure of hawker stalls paints a different picture?