Time travel back to April 2020 and you might think of Mustafa Centre as the epicentre for the clusters in dormitories: it’s believed that migrant workers have been infected there after visiting the place, and then spreading the coronavirus to various dormitories in Singapore.
The mall closed on 2 April 2020 and reopened with long queues on 6 May, though they changed their operating hours to 9:30am to 11:30pm instead of staying open for 24 hours.
With it selling daily essentials, you’d have thought that it’s become another Sheng Siong, right?
After all, some people travelled all the way to the mall to buy some daily essentials that are only sold there.
Apparently not.
Mustafa Centre Hit Hard by COVID-19
You might’ve forgotten about this: the main visitors to Mustafa Centre are migrant workers and tourists.
Currently, migrant workers living in dormitories can’t hang out anywhere in Singapore. They can only leave their dormitories for the recreational centres (RCs) “in a measured and safe manner” when the infection rates in both the community and dormitories are sustained at lower levels for a long period of time.
In other words, migrant workers can’t head to Mustafa Centre—in fact, they can’t head to any place except their residence and their workplace.
And as for tourists, the only ones you can find in Singapore now are those birds flying over from another country.
In other words, the popular mall is now facing the…crisis of its generation.
Sending Back Its Foreign Workers Who Passes Have Expired & Told Some Staff to Take on Second Job
According to The Straits Times, a manager in the mall has said that business is now just 20% of its pre-COVID-19 days, as both migrant workers and tourists have “disappeared”.
The place was also noticeably quiet on a Sunday, and there’s no need to queue to enter the premises.
The founder and managing director, Mustaq Ahmad, has just sent a letter on 27 August 2020 to all employees of Mustafa group and its related companies.
And it’s…weird.
In it, he said that the business has been affected badly by COVID-19, and therefore has not been able to “recall all our employees to work due to these reasons”.
Those workers who’ve not been called back to work appeared to have been paid $300 a month since June 2020, but that will end on September 2020. He then urged them to “take on a second employment to earn an income.”
According to the letter, he said that they’re working with the unions on various job vacancies that might be available for interested parties.
Are they retrenched or are they not?
Also, “many” employees are apparently on the lookout for other job opportunities, and therefore Mustafa Centre will allow resignation letters without notice period and even give one month’s basic pay “as a token of appreciation”.
For foreign workers, they’re unable to renew the worker passes and will “repatriate them with a return ticket home and a month’s basic pay as a token”.