CEO of NTUC Foodfare, Perry Ong

Yesterday, Vulcanpost.com published an interview it had with NTUC Foodfare CEO Perry Ong (‘NTUC Foodfare CEO Claims Social Enterprise Hawker Centres Remain An Affordable Option For Hawkers’,13 Nov), regarding his response to the current brickbats social enterprises are receiving from the public.

Ong explained that social enterprise is not a charity. “Social enterprise is not about maximising profits, but it doesn’t mean that we don’t make a profit,” he said.

“Ultimately, we need to make sure that the enterprise business is sustainable. But the profit that we actually make, we plough it all back into our social purpose and all the initiatives that we run.”

“We actually have various initiatives to help hawkers support their needs,” he added.

In some cases, however, social enterprises were found to have “outsourced” services to their own “related” companies, charging hawkers with highly controversial fees. For example, Koufu group running the new Jurong West Hawker Centre was found to have outsourced its cleaning service to GreatSolutions Pte Ltd, a subsidiary of GS Holdings. In turn, Koufu charges hawkers at $1,100 per month. Koufu is run by Pang Lim and GS Holdings by Pang Pok. Both are brothers and grassroots leaders.

No cannibalization

Ong also said that his NTUC Foodfare would ensure that hawkers in the centres it runs would not “cannibalize” each other.

“Sometimes, there’s a duplication of food types in hawker centres, which means that they are cannibalising each other. So for the new hawker centres we manage, we make sure that we curate the food types so there’s no duplication,” he said.

“This also allows patrons to have more variety to choose from. Everybody serves a unique food type so hawkers can have a better chance of success (lesser competition). That’s our way of helping the hawkers when they come into the centres we manage.”

In terms of stall rentals, Ong commented that NTUC Foodfare sets the stall rentals within the range of $1,600 to $2,200, the mid-range of the amount paid at the rest of NEA-operated hawker centres.

He said, “In our stall application exercise, the rent is fixed. Foodfare will not take more rent even if the hawkers want to pay more rent.”

With regard to the ancillary charges, he said, “What happens is that we call for contract services, and the market responds [with their] prices. The only thing we do is we do not cheap source, we go for the best [value].”

“For cleaning contracts, we require cleaning companies to achieve a Clean Mark — that is the national standard, whereby companies need to make sure they pay a certain wage to their cleaners and send them for necessary up-skilling, amongst a list of other criteria. It is all part of the national effort under the Progressive Wage Model (PWM) to try and lift this industry, especially since the cleaning industry is the one that has a lot of cheap labour,” he added.

“So if the cleaning company wants $x, then the hawkers pay $x. Foodfare does not impose additional layers of cost.”

Concept and Marketing Fee

Then there is the “Concept and Marketing” fee, about $300 per month, which NTUC Foodfare imposed on its hawkers.

Ong explained that they run “a lot of” promotions. “We run a lot of promotions such as free parking during weekday lunch hours, organise events such as family workshops and flea markets, programming with the grassroots organisations and partners to drive traffic to the centre,” he said.

“Ultimately, our whole idea is to provide affordable food to the public. In order for us to do that, we have to work very closely with our tenants and hawkers to moderate the food prices.”

And for early termination of stall leases, Ong said that hawkers only need to give a one-month notice before leaving.

When asked about discontentment among some hawkers, Ong said, “There will always be groups of hawkers who are happy, and less happy. [For the latter group], we will engage them and find out their source of discontentment.”

“But my hypothesis is that they are discontent because they are comparing two different areas: 1) their business is not doing as well as other hawkers so they find the going tough 2) they compare with other hawker centres that are non-social enterprise,” he added.

“Here’s the thing: there’s nothing stopping these hawkers to operate in the NEA hawker centres. There are constantly vacant stalls so the privilege of choice is there, bearing in mind that we do not impose penalty for uncompleted tenure.”

Subscribe
Notify of
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
You May Also Like

香港今增43冠病确诊!狮城香港航空泡泡证实展延两周

香港今日新增43冠病确诊!有鉴于香港第四波疫情持续加重,香港商务及经济发展局长邱腾华今天(11月21日)召开记者会,证实将新加坡和香港两地的航空泡泡计划,延迟两周,12月初才公布起航日期。 他指双边政府商讨之后,延后两周是较负责任的安排。至于已购买了机票的乘客,航空公司也将会有所安排。 交通部长王乙康稍早前曾表示,计划实行首几天的航班将继续飞,若香港疫情恶化,计划很可能暂停。 他在脸书更新贴文,证实和邱腾华是在今天下午进一步讨论后,作出这项决定。 他称,理解参与计划的旅客会有多失望和沮丧,但从公共卫生的角度出发,这是最好的安排。 民航局今早文告称,香港过去七天日均无关联病例为2.14例。 根据两地协议,若新加坡或香港一周的无关联冠病确诊病例每日平均超过五起,“航空泡泡”将暂停至少两周,直至每日平均少于五起才会恢复。 本月20日,香港新增了26例确诊,是三个月以来的单日确诊最高记录,21例都是本土感染,涉及德士司机、家庭主妇、酒店度宅假和跳舞群组等,一些感染源头不明 然而,仅今日(21日)香港就新增43例确诊,其中多达36起属本土感染,包括13例源头不明的病例。  

退休银行家敢敢揭发! “业界都知某些银行排挤新加坡专才”

前日《海峡时报》报导,本地数家银行宣称,他们有强大的本地人核心雇员团队,也培育本地人才的渠道。 不过一位退休银行家可不这么认为。他在《海峡时报》论坛发文,指出过去20年,不少在新加坡金融领域的外籍人士,担任中高级管理职位。 “一旦被雇用,这些外籍职员很容易就能在短时间内拿到永久居民。故此,分析本地雇员比例,把新加坡公民和永久居民相提并论是令人混肴的。” 早前,渣打银行声称其新加坡籍员工占了七成;星展银行称,银行1万2千人的雇员中,90巴仙以上都是新加坡人和永久居民。 瑞银(UBS)声称,她3千员工中,75巴仙都是本地人或永久居民。 这位退休银行家 Raymond Koh Bock Swi,坦言在疫情冲击下的经济,失去待遇优渥的PMET工作,对国人是棘手的问题。 他也建议,银行应向金融管理局和人力部,揭露新加坡籍雇员,与永久居民和其他外籍人士的比例多少,有多少新加坡人担任高管也要披露。 再者,也要规定雇用一定比例的本地雇员,例如新加坡银行应雇用九成,而非新加坡银行雇佣85巴仙等。若因特殊原因雇员比例有不同,也应有合理的理由和获得政府机构批准。…

MAS cautions developers of overbidding while foreign developers aggressively bid up S’pore land price

At the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) annual report media briefing today…

决心摆脱“破华文”? 政府广邀翻译、媒体人士提升翻译工具

明年起,通讯及新闻部广邀翻译员和媒体人士修饰政府翻译工具的翻译内容,包括对本地词汇的精准翻译,以此提升翻译水平。 去年7月,通讯及新闻部与新加坡科技研究局共同为政府研发翻译工具,“新译达”(SG Translate),以此协助政府人员将政策等相关内容译成不同语言。 该软件以人工智能(AI)操作,以改善新加坡四种官方语言的翻译能力。 在该软件推出后,初步阶段只有特定的翻译员与媒体人士能够使用。为了能够更精准翻译,政府随后将开放给更多的人。 而如今将推出新的试验计划,即“共创新译”(SG Translate Together),邀请国人协助提升翻译工具的精准度。 用户可以先使用软件进行初步翻译,再提交修饰过的翻译,而团队也会审核这些翻译并纳入系统中。 可使用翻译软件进行初步翻译,再提交修饰过的翻译,团队会在审核后将这些内容纳入系统,用来“训练”翻译软件。 “收到的翻译越多,用于训练机器的数据就越多,背后的人工智能科技就会越强。” 截至去年底前,平均每周已有700人次访问,翻译工具每周则进行1400次翻译。…