Food Poisoning- A question of the quality of hawker centres

Recently, most of you should have know that there was a controversy of food poisoning in Geylang when many people are found to be sick and even dead after eating rojak from the particular stall.

This is simply appalling. This not only tarnish our hawker centre's reputation, it also affects the tourism. Think about the consequences. Because of one that could not be bothered for the hygiene for his stall, it resulted in death. The direct impact was already a serious one.

I suggest that NEA make it a law that stalls should put up their hygiene grade of the most updated one. Most people have a habit of taking a look at the hygiene grade and decided whether to order food. However, most stalls had played "cheat" and used their old grade instead. This causes two innocent lives to be taken away.

In my opinion, the stallholder must be severely punished of his acts that resulted in such a havoc and a inconvenience for his fellow stallholders. This deterred locals and tourists away from eating at this hawker centre. A twenty year time behind the bars and a heavy fine should do the job.

I also suggest that the goverment introduce a policy for 75% of a food court stalls to have at least a b grade or else be forced to close. NEA would allow half year for stalls to improve on their hygiene before they would check again. In other words, chances would be given. This could 'inspire' them to maintain clean in fear of closure. They would also help one another.

Back to the consequences, this may also affect Singapore's economy as there are lesser revenue for tourism which is caused by the tarnish of bad reputation for the hawker centres. They could link the Newton Food Centre Case with this one together and thus have the wrong perception that food in Singapore is expensive and dirty in Singapore.

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