SINGAPORE – The popular Chomp Chomp Food Centre in Serangoon Gardens is one of four food centres being closed for repairs or renovations.

The shutters will go down at Chomp Chomp and the Jurong West Street 52 centre for between two and three months after January next year, said the National Environment Agency (NEA).

The other two food centres affected are at Block 69, Geylang Bahru and Block 163, Bukit Merah Central.

The one in Geylang Bahru closed at the start of last month and the one in Bukit Merah will close next March, for renovations lasting a year and eight months respectively.

NEA added that the leases of stalls at the four food centres, which come under the Stall Ownership Scheme, expired in October. About 80 stalls have since stopped operations.

But most stalls – 81 per cent or 361 stalls – in these centres will continue to operate. This is the third batch of stalls that have been returned after the owners’ 20-year leases expired.

While hawkers expressed worry at losing their income for up to a year, some like Ms Goh Siew Geoh, owner of Hup Kee Delicious Food in Bukit Merah Central, said that they will not move their stalls during the closure.

“It’s troublesome to take on another stall, as it’s a short period of time before we move back again,” said the 62-year-old.

First-generation hawkers under the Stall Ownership Scheme who continue operating their stalls as tenants will pay a subsidised monthly rent of $192.

Ms Irene Koh, 58, who runs Mei Ji Fish Ball Noodle with her husband in Bukit Merah Central, said: “We are happy that they gave us subsidised rent and it’s manageable, so we decided to continue working.

“It was quite heavy-going when we first purchased the 20-year lease, and had to service bank loans for the first 15 years.”

The scheme saw 1,956 stalls in 15 hawker centres sold in four phases between 1994 and 1997.

Owners paid upfront prices for 20-year leases. The scheme was halted during the economic downturn in 1998.

Hawkers who owned stalls can continue their business after the planned works, as tenants paying a monthly rental.

First-generation hawkers, who had been relocated off the streets in the 1970s, pay the subsidised $192 rent, while others are charged from $1,445 to $2,461 based on rental market rates .

Ms Koh said she hopes relatively younger hawkers who already own a stall do not give up easily.

“It’s hard to get subsidised rent like this elsewhere,” she said.

This article was first published on Dec 03, 2016.
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The bakery at the foot of the block may not be where you usually surf the Internet and shop online.

But that is the idea in Tampines Street 21, where small businesses have decided not to play second fiddle anymore to their heavyweight competition.

The heartland shopping neighbourhood officially went online yesterday when the Tampines Merchant Association (TMA) launched a free Wi-Fi network for business owners and customers.

With a price tag of about $250,000 for five years of subscription and maintenance, the association is banking on it to raise the profile of the Housing Board businesses and help them pull in more customers.

The set-up includes 61 routers, and some shopkeepers even volunteered to chip in for the cost, said TMA chairman Kwek Hong Lim, 40.

The move is part of an ongoing push to level the playing field with e-commerce and shopping malls.

Already, the neighbourhood, with about 200 shops in five blocks, has put up 18 digital signboards to display shop directories, promotions and announcements.

The new Wi-Fi service will first direct users to a registration and log-in page, and then to the merchant association’s official website, where they can browse retail promotions and discounts offered in the area.

“We are facing a lot of challenges from online businesses and malls,” said Mr Kwek, who owns the Yes Supermarket chain in Tampines.

He said: “As long as we can get eyeballs on this portal, we can spin off into a lot of other opportunities.”

This is just the beginning, he told The Straits Times.

Also in the pipeline is a mobile app to make online purchases from shops in the area, and book appointments at places like the neighbourhood dental clinic or beauty salon.

The merchant associations of other heartland areas have approached TMA to inquire about their technological efforts, he said. “We’ll be happy to help. It’s a pilot here and it can be duplicated because we already have the know-how.”

But feasibility depends on many factors such as cost, and whether the merchants are interested.

The Wi-Fi network was officially launched yesterday by Senior Minister of State for National Development Desmond Lee, North East District Mayor Teo Ser Luck, and Tampines GRC MP Cheng Li Hui.

About 3,000 users have already registered since its soft launch about two weeks ago. “We are expecting tens of thousands of users as time passes,” said Mr Kwek.

Shopkeepers and shoppers alike cheered the new link to the virtual world. “I’m already using it,” said Ms Chen Xiao Qin, 35, a shop assistant at a clothes shop in Block 201D, Tampines Street 21. “Customers can also easily WhatsApp photos of the clothes here to their friends before deciding whether to buy.”

Madam Zainab Mat Raby, 51, who owns a Muslim apparel shop in Block 201E, said free Wi-Fi will help her save money. “I use a lot of mobile data to communicate with my suppliers from Malaysia so, of course, this is good.”

Housewife and Tampines resident Sharon Teo, 33, said she is all for it. “I take my children for music classes and tuition here. The Wi-Fi will help me kill time while I wait. Hopefully, this will also keep the small businesses like my favourite bubble tea shop alive.”

GOING ONLINE

Cost of the Tampines Wi-Fi network for five years of subscription and maintenance: $250k

Number of registered users: 3,000

This article was first published on Dec 03, 2016.
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SINGAPORE – Singtel users islandwide experienced an hours-long disruption to their broadband services on Saturday (Dec 3).

In a Facebook post at around 9.45am, the local telco acknowledged that customers may be experiencing difficulties in accessing their fibre broadband services.

“Our engineers are working to resolve the problem,” Singtel added.

However, the situation remained unresolved more than four hours later.

At 11.55am, Singtel said that the fibre broadband service was still down and that engineers were still investigating the cause of the outage. “Please bear with us as we try to resolve the problem. Thank you once again for your patience.”

It subsequently posted an update at 1.30pm, apologising for the disruption and announcing that it was waiving mobile data charges for the day. “As our engineers continue working to resolve our fibre broadband outage issues, we advise affected customers who are also Sintel postpaid mobile subscribers to use their Singtel mobile broadband in the meantime. We will waive their Singtel mobile data charges for today,” the telco wrote on Facebook

The post has attracted close to 7,000 comments, many of which were from users saying that the service in their areas was still down. Affected areas included Woodlands, Telok Blangah, Yishun, Jurong East and Tampines.

Netizens also took to Twitter, with a number expressing frustration after the disruption had caused them to exceed their mobile data limits.

In 2014, an hour-long fire at Singtel’s Bukit Panjang exchange took down Internet connections in northern and western Singapore, affecting 270,000 subscribers, including businesses, for up to eight days. The telco was fined a record $6 million for the incident.

More recently, it was fined a total of $145,000 for two pay-TV disruptions in October 2015 and January 2016.

seanyap@sph.com.sg

Since its launch in March 1991, Zouk has been a trendsetter, appealing to a crowd spanning generations, and it is still going strong today.

Tonight, Zouk will host its last party at Jiak Kim Street, after being there for 25 years.

It is expected to be a full house, with 4,000 people turning up at the award-winning club.

Doors at the club’s new location, Clarke Quay, will open on Dec 17.

Regular party-goers were nostalgic about the good times.

Miss Amy Tashiana, 50, a freelance fashion coordinator, has been going to Zouk since day one.

“People would go there to make a fashion statement,” the former model said.

“Zouk was the only club in Singapore which played music like house and techno.”

She reminisced about Zouk’s popular Mambo Jambo nights held every Wednesday.

Miss Tashiana said: “Mambo Jambo nights were unique and fun. They played all the older music (by singers) like Rick Astley and Bananarama.”

Miss Nadya Neo, 19, who has partied at Zouk with her mother, told TNP: “I love the music, the themes and the atmosphere at Zouk. I go there with my mum because she’s extremely easy to hang out with, and she knows most of my friends.”

She added: “I will miss the fact that at Jiak Kim, Zouk is exclusive.

“The entire Jiak Kim practically ‘belongs’ to Zouk, and there’s a certain atmosphere once I turn into Jiak Kim Street.”

Miss Tashiana said: “It’s time for the younger generation to take over, and hopefully they will maintain the glamorous time that we had over the years at Zouk Jiak Kim.

“What is Zouk without the divas?”

The move to Clarke Quay will be an “opportune moment to progress and to evolve from its Jiak Kim predecessor”, said Miss Sofie Chandra, who heads the marketing and events division at Zouk. ”

The new place, she added, promises to take all party-goers into a new era of party experiences while keeping the essence of the Zouk spirit.

“Zouk will continue to deliver top-notch quality of dance music and service excellence,” Miss Chandra said.

This article was first published on December 3 2016.
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SINGAPORE – A former ST Marine chief executive officer and president implicated in one of the largest graft scandals in corporate Singapore was on Friday (Dec 2) sentenced to 10 months’ jail and a $100,000 fine.

See Leong Teck, 66, who helmed the apex position at ST Marine, a subsidiary of bluechip engineering giant ST Engineering, is the fifth of seven former ST Marine executives charged in the case to be convicted.

He is the fourth to be sentenced and the third to be given a jail term. His sentence is the heftiest so far.

See had earlier pleaded guilty to one charge each of corruption, falsification of accounts, and failure to act honestly and use reasonable diligence in the discharge of his duties as the director of a company.

See became ST Marine’s chief executive in December 1997 and was its president from 1998 until 2008.

Investigations revealed that ST Marine officers had been giving cash bribes to employees of ST Marine’s customers since at least 1996, with the approval of its senior management team. At least $24.9 million in kickbacks were paid between 2000 and 2011.

Employees of ST Marine’s customers, mainly overseas companies, would request “commissions” for giving ship-repair contracts and other business to the company.

After getting approval from ST Marine’s senior management, an employee would submit petty cash claims for “entertainment expenses”. Cash cheques issued for these claims would be encashed, and the amount given as a kickback.

In 2000 or 2001, See met with ST Marine’s senior management and discussed the increasing payment of cash commissions, then a pre-existing practice. See approved the continuation of the practice.

In early 2004, at another such meeting attended by two members of ST Marine’s audit committee, the issue was again brought up. The two were the committee’s chairman Peter Yap Kim Kee and ST Engineering’s then-chief executive Tan Pheng Hock. Both allegedly did not object to the continued practice.

In late 2003 or early 2004, auditors held two meetings with ST Marine’s senior management, after they found claims had been paid without supporting receipts. See told auditors about the kickbacks, saying they were common practice in the industry and necessary. The auditors did not accept the explanation both times.

But See and others in ST Marine’s management also agreed to continue using cash vouchers falsely labelled as entertainment expenses.

Mr Tan and Mr Yap were allegedly in agreement to continue the practise.

See will start serving his sentence on Jan 31.

This article was first published on Dec 02, 2016.
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SINGAPORE – Mr Charles Chong, the MP for Punggol East and a political veteran of nearly 30 years, is on eight weeks’ medical leave after he underwent “a planned medical procedure” on Thursday, said the People’s Action Party (PAP) in a statement yesterday.

It was done at National University Hospital and he is in stable condition, the party said, without disclosing what the procedure was.

Mr Chong, 63, who is also Deputy Speaker of Parliament, expects to gradually resume his constituency activities fully after his medical leave, said the statement.

But his doctors have advised him to limit physical exertion and contact with the public during his recovery, it added.

Mr Chong entered politics in 1988 and is the longest-serving PAP backbencher in Parliament.

Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean said in the statement that Mr Chong had asked his colleagues in neighbouring Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC, where Mr Teo is the anchor minister, to look after the residents of Punggol East while he recovers.

Meet-the-People Sessions will continue every Monday, except on public holidays and the fifth Monday of a month, and constituency activities will go on as usual.

Mr Teo, who is also Coordinating Minister for National Security, said: “We’ve always worked together as a team and we will continue to make sure that our Punggol East residents are well looked after.”

This article was first published on Dec 03, 2016.
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