Conservancy charges, temporary occupational licence fees to be waived for 8 markets and food centres hit by COVID-19
115 Bukit Merah View Market and Hawker Centre, Jun 14, 2021. (Photo: Try Sutrisno Foo)
SINGAPORE: Stalls in eight markets and food centres that were closed because of COVID-19 will have their service and conservancy charges, as well as temporary occupational licence fees waived, said Mr Lim Biow Chuan on Saturday (Jul 31).
Mr Lim, who is coordinating chairman for the 15 PAP town councils, said eight markets and food centres managed by PAP-run town councils were identified as COVID-19 clusters.
The affected markets and food centres were required to close for two weeks to break the chain of transmission and allow deep cleaning of the premises.
The list of markets and food centres affected by the closures are as follows:
"Many of these stallholders are our residents and these mandatory closures have impacted their livelihoods.
"They have been serving our communities, and we empathise with them on the impact of such closures to their businesses," said Mr Lim in a media release.
To support the stallholders, seven town councils in charge of the eight markets and food centres have decided to waive their service and conservancy charges, as well as temporary occupational licence fees, for the full period of closures.
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About S$70,000 is waived for 1,076 stallholders in total. This is in addition to the support given by the Government to the market and hawker stallholders.
"We hope this will provide some form of financial relief to our stallholders to help them cope with the challenges brought upon by the closures," said Mr Lim.
Last week, the Ministry of Health said it is investigating COVID-19 cases involving markets and food centres that are likely "seeded" by fishmongers who visited Jurong Fishery Port to collect their stock and sell at these markets and food centres.
As of noon on Friday, 999 COVID-19 cases are linked to the Jurong Fishery Port cluster.
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