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SINGAPORE \u2013 Stallholders and residents are concerned about slowing footfall at Geylang Serai Market, and there is more that the Government can do to boost the area\u2019s vibrancy, said Acting Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs Zaqy Mohamad.<\/p>\n
Speaker of Parliament Seah Kian Peng will meet the community in the coming week to discuss the issue, Zaqy said on July 26 after a walkabout at the market.<\/p>\n
Seah is also an MP for Marine Parade-Braddell Heights GRC \u2013 the constituency in which the market sits.<\/p>\n
Many in the community have said the slowdown has been due to economic conditions, said Zaqy, who took over as acting minister on July 20<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n Improving the market\u2019s outcomes is one area he is looking into in order to expand and strengthen engagement with the Malay\/Muslim community and continue the work of his predecessor Faishal Ibrahim, he added.<\/p>\n Faishal, who had been acting minister-in-charge of Muslim affairs for about 14 months since May 2025, resigned from political office and as an MP<\/span><\/a> on July 20 over inappropriate interactions with a woman.<\/p>\n Zaqy was joined on the walkabout on July 26 by Seah, as well as East Coast GRC MP Hazlina Abdul Halim and Jalan Besar GRC MP Wan Rizal Wan Zakariah.<\/p>\n The four politicians were seen going from table to table speaking to patrons and stallholders from about 8.30am to 10am.<\/p>\n The MPs were there to get a sense of the mood and concerns of residents, merchants and stallholders, and how the Government can assure them that Faishal\u2019s work will continue after his resignation, said Zaqy, who is also Senior Minister of State for Defence.<\/p>\n Wisma Geylang Serai and Geylang Serai Market and Food Centre \u2013 both are in Marine Parade-Braddell Heights GRC, where Faishal was an MP \u2013 are the focal point of the Malay\/Muslim community, Zaqy said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is important that we continue to create vibrancy and programming, and certainly continue engaging them here, where they congregate every weekend,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Zaqy said he is also engaging Malay\/Muslim organisations and met some of their leaders on July 25.<\/p>\n He added that he will continue Faishal\u2019s work in this area as well, which includes the M\u00b3+ initiative. The initiative brings together more groups beyond the existing M\u00b3 partnership between self-help group Mendaki, the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS) and the People\u2019s Association Malay Activity Executive Committees Council.<\/p>\n Zaqy has been meeting various sections of the community at engagements since his appointment.<\/p>\n On July 21, the day after he was appointed acting minister, he held a dialogue with community leaders along with Prime Minister Lawrence Wong and Coordinating Minister for National Security and Minister for Home Affairs K. Shanmugam.<\/p>\n On July 24, he performed his first Friday prayer as acting minister at Darul Aman Mosque in Eunos, together with MUIS chief executive Kadir Maideen and mosque leaders.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n SINGAPORE \u2013 Stallholders and residents are concerned about slowing footfall at Geylang Serai Market, and there is more that the Government can do to boost…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":71835,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=71834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/71835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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