State housing, local government, town and country planning committee chairman Jagdeep Singh Deo said he had received several complaints from food stall hawkers, especially those at public market areas and temporary hawker sites, urging that they be allowed to operate as early as 6am, the same time as market traders.

“We need to strike a balance between health safety and economic security. The number of Covid-19 cases in Penang yesterday was 159 while Selangor had 2,001 cases. This is a big difference but the standard operating procedures (SOPs) are the same. This needs to be reviewed.

“It is not logical if they (food hawkers and public market traders) operate at the same place but food hawkers have to wait two hours after the market starts operating. Usually, customers will buy food while shopping for their daily necessities in the market…if they (food hawkers) operate later, then there will be no sales,” he told a press conference here today.

He said the committee had sent a letter of application to review the operating hours for food hawkers to the National Security Council (MKN) on May 31 but received a reply on June 3, that the opening hours would remain at 8am.

“Yesterday, the local authorities sent another letter of appeal to MKN and I will personally contact the relevant minister to discuss this matter,” he said.

In the meantime, he said vaccine registrations among Penang residents now stands at 991,000 as compared to the 1.34 million target.

Penang local authorities had also conducted over two million inspections since the pandemic started and so far the state has recorded an SOP compliance rate of 99%.

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