Chow shakes hands with a vendor during his working visit to Balik Pulau Market. — Bernama photo
BALIK PULAU: Penang Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow yesterday instructed all local councils to maintain markets and hawker centres well to ensure they are ‘clean, green and safe’ for the people.
He also called on the traders and hawkers to demonstrate ‘a sense of ownership’ in keeping the markets and hawker centres clean and safe, saying these places were their source of livelihood.
“I do not want Penang to have first-class infrastructure but with third-class maintenance,” he said to reporters after a working visit to the Balik Pulau Market with Balik Pulau MP Muhammad Bakhtiar Wan Chik and Penang Island City Council mayor Yew Tung Seang.
Chow said a common complaint of the people was the poor maintenance of many markets and hawker centres, including lack of cleanliness and a delay in repairing faulty facilities.
He said that over the past 10 years, the state government had made improvements to the facilities at the markets and hawker centres and it was the duty of the local councils, traders and hawkers to undertake proper maintenance.
“I hope that over the next five years, the local councils will focus on the maintenance of these facilities so that they remain clean, green and safe for the people,” he said.
As for the traders and hawkers, he said, these were the places where they earned their livelihood and they should have a sense of ownership in keeping them clean and safe.
Meanwhile, Muhammad Bakhtiar urged the state government to build a digital library in Balik Pulau, along the lines of the Penang Digital Library in George Town that he said had received encouraging response, so as to prevent youngsters in the constituency from straying into social problems.
“Balik Pulau is a large area. I propose having a digital library in the district so as to boost the reading habit in the youths,” he said. — Bernama