Just How Clean Are Singapore Hawkers?

With the recent rojak food poisoning saga, I’ve decided to take a closer look at our local hawkers. And perhaps more importantly, how effective is “hawker hygiene grading system”?

Today’s article in the Straits Times states that of the 83 stalls in Geylang Serai, 80 were downgraded to “C”. Now here comes the best part, apparently the grading has been done 4 months back, and the stall owners only got their “certificate” until today. (i.e. after the food poisoning incident)

With so many hawker centres around in Singapore, can you imagine what’s happening at the other hundreds of hawker centres in Singapore? 80 out of 83 stalls were given grade C in Geyland Serai, and it took 4 months to issue the certificate to 80 stalls. Then the rest of Singapore how?

Talk about government efficiency…

Looking at the picture as a whole, just how effective is the grading sytem?

1. How often are the stalls being reviewed? (I’ve never heard of stalls downgraded till now)
2. How often do rats reproduce itself?
3. If a stall has got Grade C or D, does it mean we should stay away?

I always think to resolve the problem, we should always look at the cause. In this scenario, NEA should examine at how to keep the surrounding area clean and help improve the hawker centre’s hygiene as a whole, rather than just giving out certificates forcing stall owners to hang it on the wall.

Whats the point have a clean stall when there are rats running around in the drain around the hawker centre. If the landlord doesn’t lead by example to make an effort and step up measures to keep the vacinity clean, how do you expect your tenants to follow instructions?

Below’s more information on the hawker hygiene grading system:

Officers from the National Environment Agency look at factors like the stall’s cleanliness, pest infestation, housekeeping and food and personal hygiene levels. For each category, stalls are given points and a subsequent overall grading.

Stalls that fail to get at least a D grading are not allowed to operate.
A – Excellent (score of 85 per cent and above)
B – Good (score of between 70 per cent and 84 per cent)
C – Average (score of between 50 per cent and 69 per cent)
D – Below average (score of between 40 per cent and 49 per cent)

This entry was posted on Monday, April 13th, 2009 at 6:51 pm and is filed under Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.