TRADERS at the Pantai Batu Buruk food court in Kuala Terengganu are troubled as their appeal to local authorities to reduce the rental of their business premises from RM500 to RM300 has fallen on deaf ears.

They said the Kuala Terengganu City Council (MBKT) has ignored their pleas, and worse, some of them have been issued with termination of contract notices for having arrears.

They told The Malaysian Insight they made losses during the Covid-19 lockdowns and had continued to pay rent even when even when business was poor.

They have so far sent three letters of appeal, without any response from the council.

Raja Nazri Raja Sapie, 40, vice-chairman of the Pantai Buruk 3 Food Court Traders Association, said action by the council was unfair as he the rent arrears were not intentional.

He said their businesses had been badly affected over the past two years due to Covid-19, seeing a drop of more than 70% of their customers.

“Since the Covid-19 pandemic started two years ago, fewer customers have come. The majority of customers are government employees in the area, and staff and visitors to Sultanah Nur Zahirah Hospital (HSNZ).

“With the dine-in ban in place and visitors not allowed to come to the hospital, our businesses have been severely affected. We are doing business at a loss. It is difficult for us even to recover our capital.

“That is why we appealed to MBKT to be considerate and reduce the monthly rental because it is very burdensome.

“MBKT never came to meet us to discuss our problems. We sent them three letters,” Raja Nazri said.

Poorly maintained building, uncollected garbage

Raja Nazri said the Batu Buruk food court started operating five years ago with 18 traders.

They were offered a place at the food court after their stalls in the lane next to HSNZ were demolished, he said.

But today, only 12 traders are still open for business in the food court as the rest have decided to cease operations after incurring significant losses.

He added that the premises were dilapidated and suffered a lot of damage but no maintenance was done by the city council.

“Among them is the garbage problem. As far as I remember, garbage was collected only in the first month when we started business here in 2017.

“After that, there was none, even though we did pay because it was included in the rental price. What I find strange is there are garbage bins here (but rubbish not collected).

“If you go to the back of our stall, every stall has a rubbish bin. But it feels like it’s just a decoration because there are no council employees coming to collect the garbage,” he said.

This leaves the traders with no choice but to dump their rubbish and waste into the bin of a fast food restaurant located 1km away.

Trader Rozlinda Yusof, 46, said their request for lower rental was fair due to their reduced business volume and poor maintenance of the food court by the city council.

Rozlinda said when the traders first moved in and started doing business in the food court in 2017, they paid a rental of RM1,000.

“That is why we appealed for the rent to be reduced to RM500 and MBKT agreed to reduce the rate.

“However, we experienced many problems, especially involving the facilities here. Until now, there were no sign boards to make it easier for outsiders to locate our food court.

“Besides that, there are no public amenities such as toilets and surau. The fans have been damaged for the past three years and they have not been repaired until now,” said Rozlinda.

Savings all but dried up

Another trader, Munira Mohd Daud, 45, said she hoped MBKT would heed their appeal to reduce the rent.

Munira said the situation forced her to pawn her jewellery to cover her losses.

“I pawned my jewellery because I have to pay the electricity bill, and to cover costs because I’m not making any profit.

“After all, with the rising price of goods, we are very burdened. That’s why I can’t pay the rent. In such a situation, how long can we sustain?

“But MBKT only gave us a two-month rent moratorium. The rest we have to pay even though we have not made any profit,” she said.

Munira said before the pandemic, she could make RM3,000 in net sales a month but now it was difficult to even earn RM600 a month.

She said that she had to let go of two employees as she was unable to pay their salaries.

“I used to have four employees but because I couldn’t afford to pay them, I had to lay off two employees.

“Sometimes when we do business, we have to use funds from our savings for capital. But we only can do this if we have savings,” she said. – February 5, 2022.