Do you want cleaners going into your household to do the cleaning?

"When we have a littering problem and we have a cleanliness problem, the conservancy costs will go up because the workers will have to come in more regularly.

That would increase the cost because from a normal cleaning situation where you just clean the common corridors and the lift lobbies, now you have to go into the individual households to try and clean it.

This is unnecessary for the residents because the higher the cost, it will be transferred to the residents. We do not want that to happen.

We want them to try and minimise the need for them to pay extra just because of irresponsible behaviour. At this point in time, we have not raised the conservancy charges at all because we have been able to manage, but I think we can continue to contain it even better if residents take responsibility.

The chances of increasing costs will be there if we do not contain this, because the idea is to look at the natural situation where previously you will not need workers to go into individual households."

-- Dr Maliki Osman, Parliamentary Secretary for National Development


Workers to go into individual households to clean? I have read the passage over and over again and still got no idea what he is trying to say. To stop high-rise littering, cleaners will go into the individual households to try and clean it? If high-rise littering were to continue, the rubbish will still end up at the foot of the blocks, which is already been cleaned by the cleaners. So where is this "going into individual households" coming from? My guess? Dr Osman has no idea what he is talking as well because most probably he don't stay in a HDB flat.

And is raising the service and conservancy charges the way to deter high-rise littering? Are we getting to the root of the problem? Is it fair to make the rest pay for the littering few? This is exactly why chewing gum is banned in Singapore. Because of the irresponsible minority.