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.

Sure you can pay the elderly cleaner $300 a month!

"We don't have a minimum wage for Singapore, whether local workers or migrant workers."

-- MOM permanent secretary Loh Khum Yean, when migrant welfare group Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2) asked for a minimum wage for domestic workers.


And how poorly paid are low wage workers in Singapore? Find out the truth from the mouth of an ex-CEO of NTUC.

Foolish to advocate the learning of dialects

To keep a language alive, it has to be used regularly. Using one language more frequently means less time for other languages. Hence, the more languages a person learns, the greater the difficulties of retaining them at a high level of fluency.

This is why we have discouraged the use of dialects. It interferes with the learning of Mandarin and English.

-- Chee Hong Tat, Principal Private Secretary to the Minister Mentor

Cooking Up The Holiday Spirit with just S$45,000

"We found out that Le Cordon Bleu Paris runs intensive courses in culinary and patisserie from mid-November to December. These are the regular three-month classes they run but compressed into five weeks, with no loss in content.

To my surprise and theirs, I told them I would sign up for the course with them. (Taking five weeks’ leave from work is not as difficult as one thinks. Most times, when you are at the top, you think you are indispensable. But if you are a good leader who has built up a good team, it is possible to go away for five weeks or even longer.)

It would be quality family time for the three of us. My daughter Yanying, 23, would join us in Paris in our last week, since she could not take such long leave because she had just started working."

-- Tan Yong Soon, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Water Resources

The Intensive Cuisine Certificate Programme:
Basic: 7,750 euros (S$15,500)
Intermediate: 7,600 euros
Superior: 7,700 euros