Elderly Sungei Road vendors need more help
The Association for the Recycling of Second Hand Goods is disappointed with the Environment and Water Resources Minister’s response in Parliament (Some sellers from Sungei Road market keen to relocate to hawker centres; April 4).
Only about 10 out of the more than 200 vendors in the Sungei Road market are receiving relocation assistance or public assistance.
But more than 80 per cent of the vendors are elderly folks who depend on hawking for income.
Many turned to the Sungei Road market out of necessity when they were retrenched previously and could not find another job.
Closing the market will push some to squat illegally, as hawking is the only way they know how to survive given their age and poverty.
We learn from news reports that the Government will extend assistance and provide employment services for the vendors, but no government official has approached us to date.
Our eligibility for these schemes is also not assured. How would most of the vendors who are not well-educated and speak mainly dialects qualify for employment services?
Also, those with adult children may not be eligible for public assistance, even if their children are not contributing much financially.
That the Government does not deem it fruitful to engage with the vendors, to resolve our livelihood issues, is disheartening, especially since we have been unable to meet the relevant authorities to raise our difficulties.
We have no wish to stand in the way of redevelopment. What we urge the Government to consider is to preserve the market in a different location nearby.
Or can it study the possibility of integrating a hawking zone into the redevelopment plan? For our part, we are willing to comply with regulations to reduce the problem of disamenities.
As an 80-year-old market, it has witnessed Singapore’s development and provided a space for those down on their luck to get back on their feet, as well as affordable shopping.
