A netizen has posted an interesting piece of information on the popular online forum Sammyboy. In the posting, the netizen talks about some inaccuracies he found in the dossier of documents which Minister Vivian presented in Parliament recently.
The netizen highlights the first paragraph of the documentary evidence in Vivian’s dossier [Link]:
It states that Ms Chin of NEA informed Mr Pradeep of AHPETC that the Block 538 Hawker Association representatives had proposed that their annual March 2013 spring cleaningbe scheduled from 4 to 8 March 2013.
However, if one looks at the actual email correspondence between Ms Chin and Mr Pradeep on 20 December 2012 as documented by Minister Vivian in the dossier, the word “annual” is not found in the email – this email correspondence is published on AHPETC’s site [Link] as well:
Ms Chin of NEA described the cleaning as “Next Spring Cleaning” rather than “Next Annual Spring Cleaning” or “Annual Spring Cleaning”. There is no mention of the word “annual” in the email correspondence of 20 December 2012 at all.
The netizen says, “And if you look at Chin Peiyun’s email, she did not say ‘annual’. However, Vivian’s dossier added that word.”
The netizen then highlights AHPETC’s original annual cleaning schedule on its website [Link]:
In other words, AHPETC had already planned to carry out the annual cleaning for Blk 538 hawker center in the “last week of Oct 13″.
With regard to the ongoing hawker center cleaning dispute between Minister Vivian and AHPETC, Mr Low Thia Khiang, in his reply to the press on 10 July 2013 (‘Low stands by Sylvia & Pritam, says Vivian’s attack was not good politics‘), restated his stand in Parliament that there was a misunderstanding whether the cleaning session was an annual or a quarterly one.
Mr Low clarified that if NEA was referring to quarterly cleaning, the town council would not have been obliged to clean the high areas since the contract with NEA stipulated at least once a year cleaning for the high areas.
Minister Vivian Balakrishnan
However, if they meant annual cleaning, it would then be the town council’s duty to clean the high areas at its own cost, as stipulated in the contract. He said that if NEA had wanted an annual cleaning session to be carried out, it should have communicated this clearly. In any case, there was no basis for NEA to make such requests since it is up to the town council to decide on the schedule for the annual cleaning for the markets in the constituencies under its charge, he added.
On a conciliatory note, Mr Low said that both the town council and NEA have “room for improvement” when it comes to communication.
Clearly, Ms Chin of NEA did not make clear if the cleaning was to be “annual” cleaning, which mandates the cleaning of the high areas, or a “non-annual” one which does not require the high areas to be cleaned. Ms Chin simply referred to the cleaning as “Next Spring Cleaning” in her 20 December 2012 correspondence with AHPETC.
It was Minister Vivian who, purposely or carelessly, added the word “annual“ in describing the event of 20 December 2012 in his dossier under “Chronology of Events”.
TR Emeritus
*Article first appeared on www.TREmeritus.com
Republished with permission.