1. My respects to both Mr Seetoh - a food critic with financial interests on his Makansutra website - & to Senior Minister of State Dr Koh.
2. I do agree that SM Dr Koh perhaps may spend some time on the ground, but as a Minister & Dr, he would have his hands full, following exPrez Eisenhower's proven successful DAILY PRODUCTIVITY Matrix. Delegation of tasks is one of the 4 within that matrix.
3. The issue with discussing with hawkers is they are often coy about their earnings, as they fear IRAS would come after them, such as the famous case of Old ChangKee curry puff boss. It took dedicated manpower & resources to finally nail him on tax evasion charges. Who would had believed that selling curry puffs would enable one to own luxurious landed homes & cars?
4.One early morning a few months back, after a long day at work, the insignificant nobody me decided to have a cup of coffee at a nearby coffee stall at a Hawker center in the heartlands that opens at 4am, to perk me up as I had other stuff to do at home.
5. Next to the coffee stall was a Hainanese Chicken rice stall. It was not open, but the hawker was busy cooking & preparing the chicken, ingredients, rice, chilli packets, etc. There were 10 chickens that were hung on the wall.
6. As I knew from others in such trade, a chicken can be chopped up to serve 25 plates of Chicken rice. It would mean that the seller had prepared to serve 250 plates of rice, at a low price of $3/plate = $750/day. His was a popular chicken rice stall & usually he would close his shop by 1 or 2pm, & works everyday, as the friendly coffee stall owner told me, which I investigated a few times to confirm the fact.
7. At a gross profit of $750/day, it would mean $22,500/MTH. I tried to ask him how much was his stall rental, but he just smiled. However, I do know that a whole chicken costs only $11. Thus, his basic outlay for chicken alone is $110/day or $3,300/mth. He did admit that his stall was rented from HDB years ago, with a bid of $300/mth. Together with other ingredients such rice, oil, sauces & utilities, it will not be more than another $3000/mth for overheads.
So what was his NETT profit?
8. Should he serve the dinner & supper crowd, his earnings would be more...but make no mistake. I am not encouraging anyone to take up the hawker trade. It was created by our Founding & forefathers to give everyone a chance to earn an honest living.
Based upon statistics, 88% of our workforce have full time jobs with average pay between $3k to $5k for most, with some in the highly lucrative financial sector earning $75,000/mth & the rare intelligent individual subcontractors armed with PHDs in this financial sector earning USD$20,000.....per HOUR for their efforts....
Those hawkers may had out of circumstances or out of choice, chose this line of honest trade. But still, they do need help, especially those whom are new in this trade, not just in cooking skills, but in every other aspect of entrepreneurship such as financial mgmt, productivity, PR, etc, to provide low cost food to fellow citizens, an astounding example that even the rest of Humankind Worldwide are studying it....
We Singaporeans, will leave NONE behind, regardless of race, language or religion - a legacy left behind for us by our courageous & visionary Founding & Forefathers whom gave us our todays...