PM's promise to vendors hit by AMK fire: full facilities by FebStraits Times Online, The (Singapore)
Nov 10, 2007
By Mavis Toh
STALL vendors of the recently burnt-down market on Ang Mo Kio Avenue 4 will have much to cheer about this coming Chinese New Year.
Come February, a temporary market and food centre will be set up behind the Yio Chu Kang Community Club. It will be able to house 165 stalls, including 48 cooked food stalls.
The operators were given this assurance when Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong visited the stall holders on Saturday.
Since a fire razed the market's 232 stalls three weeks ago, 124 wet market stall vendors have been operating out of two large white tents that were set up in a nearby carpark a week later to help them continue operating.
The tents, however, did not have the facilities to house cooked food stalls. This was one of the problems a stall owner raised with Mr Lee.
Madam Lai Sun Choo, 50, a fish seller, said her business had dropped by half since the move.
'Fewer customers come because there are no cooked food stalls for them to eat at,' she told The Sunday Times.
As Mr Lee shook hands and vendors waved back, he assured them that he would do what he could to improve the situation.
He also took the opportunity to remind vendors that fire insurance was a vital form of protection that should not be neglected.
It was discovered after the fire that most of the vendors in the market did not have a fire insurance policy.
Yio Chu Kang MP Seng Han Thong later said that only about 20 per cent of the stall vendors had insurance coverage.
'We can use this to remind people that they should always have insurance,' he said.
Meanwhile, the National Environment Agency said that plans for a new market have started and the new facility will be complete in about two years.
Vegetable seller Yan Fu Tian, 52, is hoping that the new market will bring back business.
'Here, there's no parking and no cooked food stalls. My business has dropped by more than 50 per cent,' he said.
'Hopefully, when the new building is up, my customers will come back.'
Copyright © 2007 Singapore Press Holdings