ENVIRONMENTAL PUBLIC HEALTH (AMENDMENT) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

The Minister for the Environment (Dr Ahmad Mattar): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

The Environmental Public Health Act, Chapter 95 (EPHA), provides for the Commissioner of Public Health to authorise a public officer, which includes any officer of a statutory board, to carry out any or all of the powers in the Act.

Since 1977, Sir, Housing and Development Board officers have been authorised under the EPHA to enforce against littering, spitting, illegal hawking and other public health offences within HDB estates. Given such authorisation, HDB officers were able to deal directly with offenders encountered during the officers' duties within the estates.

To continue with the arrangement in housing estates managed by Town Councils, the Commissioner of Public Health will empower staff of the Town Councils with a similar authorisation. However, Sir, the nine Town Councils formed so far, do not have any field staff of their own. Instead, all of them have engaged a private management company to look after and maintain their respective estates.

It is, therefore, necessary to amend the EPHA to allow the Commissioner of Public Health to empower the staff of private management companies engaged by Town Councils to enforce against littering, spitting and other public health offences within Town Council estates.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed.

Mr Chin Harn Tong (Aljunied GRC): Mr Speaker, Sir, I support the Bill. But I have three clarifications that I need from the Minister.

First, as the Town Councils do not have a big staff, enforcement is likely to be delegated to the management agents. The management agents are neither statutory boards nor Government agencies. This means that the power of enforcing a legislation is now delegated to a non-public agency. Is this practice unusual and whether there is any precedent?

Second, how would the Ministry ensure uniform enforcement of the Act? How strictly would the Town Councils enforce the rule would depend on the policy of each Town Council. Sir, on a matter which concerns public health, which is the specific responsibility of the Ministry of the Environment, would the Ministry consider it desirable to have a wide variation in the enforcement standards?

Third, can the Town Councils opt to leave the enforcement to the Ministry of the Environment?

Mr Chiam See Tong: Sir, the Town Council was specifically formed to manage, maintain, control and improve common property of residential and commercial housing estates. Now the Town Councils are asked to do additional duties. I would imagine basically enforcement duties. Sir, I wonder whether it would not be ultra vires the Town Councils Act, which specifically spells out the functions of the Town Councils. The Town councils not only manage and maintain properties but they are now asked to do enforcement duties. Perhaps the Minister could clarify on that.

Sir, I think the Minister is not quite accurate in saying that all Town Councils are managed by the EM Services. In fact, the Potong Pasir Town Council is managed by ourselves. We are a compact unit. We run a tight budget. We have got a very small staff, minimal staff, to keep down costs. Now we are asked to stretch our resources to embark on enforcement duties. We did not foresee that. I hope the Ministry of the Environment with which our Town Council has got very good relationship, is not passing the buck on to us to do duties for them. As it is, we have already got our hands full and I do not know which section of our Town Council we should call upon to do such enforcement duties. I hope the Minister will give us the assurance that once this Bill is passed they are not coming down to Potong Pasir to do any more work as regards enforcement duties and dependent entirely on us to do it.

The last point I would like to bring up is this. Once this Bill is passed, by law, the Town Councils can do these duties and are mandatory. The question is whether or not we have to carry out these enforcement duties.

Encik Ibrahim Othman (Bedok GRC): ( In Malay): Mr Speaker, Sir, in principle, I support the amendment Bill because the objective is good. The principal objective is to ensure a clean environment in the estates and to give enforcement powers to Town Councils. I have a few questions for the Minister. Firstly, with the passage of this Bill, is the Ministry of the Environment going to pass on all its enforcement functions to the Town Councils? Secondly, if the Ministry of the Environment aware of the cost increases that the Town Councils will have to bear as a result? And if the Town Councils' costs do increase, would the Ministry of the Environment be prepared to bear part of such increase? My final question is: should any Town Council decide not to assume these functions intended for them, what will be the effect on areas under the charge of the Town Council concerned? Does this mean that the Ministry of the Environment will not be carrying out enforcement in such areas?

Mr Heng Chiang Meng (Cheng San GRC): Sir, looking at the amendment as it is worded, it looks like if the Minister so approves, the Town Council may have no choice but to accept the responsibility. It means that the officials from the Ministry of the Environment may not go to that particular Town Council to enforce the powers of the EPHA. Unfortunately, we must remember that enforcement requires and involves expenditure. I do not think Town Councils have the money for this expenditure. I will be very happy to hear from the Minister if he can tell us that the decision to accept enforcement of certain powers of the Act rests with the Town Council and not by fiat or by the wish of the Minister. I will be happier if this point could in fact be included as part of the amendment.

Having said so, I would also like to ask the Minister for three points of clarification. One, if the Town Council so accepts the responsibility, will the fines collected from the composition of offences or successful prosecution of the offenders be given to the Town Council concerned? Two, could the Minister let us know that in the light of the HDB's experience whether the fines collected by the HDB are more or less than the cost of enforcement incurred by the HDB over the years? Three, can Town Councils be given Government grants to perform the duties of enforcement? In essence, this is no different from the Ministry of the Environment being allocated funds from the Consolidated Fund to carry out its duties. Since this enforcement is on behalf of public health, then I think it is up to the Ministry of the Environment to give us the money to do their job.

Dr Ahmad Mattar: Mr Speaker, Sir, first of all, I would like to thank hon. Members who have spoken on the Bill.

Let me state at the outset, that the delegation of authority to the staff or management agents of Town Councils will not be made compulsory. Town Councils individually will decide whether or not they want to be empowered to take action on spitting and littering offences. The choice is theirs. The decision rests completely with them. However, from the long experience we have in a similar arrangement with the HDB, I think this arrangement can go a long way to help Town Councils manage the estates under their charge more effectively.

Sir, Mr Chin Harn Tong, the Member for Aljunied GRC and concurrently the Chairman of the Aljunied Town Council, finds the proposal to delegate power of enforcing a legislation to a non-public agency a little unusual and therefore wants to know whether there is any precedence to support it. Sir, empowering a non-public agency or a person who is not a public officer to enforce certain provisions of a legislation is not an unusual practice. For example, managing agents appointed by management corporations of private condominiums can, under certain clauses of the Land Titles (Strata) Act, be empowered to enforce certain provisions of the Act.

Sir, on uniformity in enforcement, we can expect to have different degrees of strictness among Town Councils. It will all depend on how clean a Town Council chooses to keep its estate. And, of course, my Ministry would not like to see wide variations in the standards of cleanliness in Town Council estates. But I think and I am confident that no Town Council will ever allow its estate to deteriorate to a state which can pose a health hazard.

On whether Town Councils can opt to leave the enforcement to the Ministry of the Environment, the answer is of course yes. The overall responsibility against littering, spitting and other public health offences rests with my Ministry. If a Town Council chooses not to be empowered and take the role of the enforcer, then of course my Ministry will have to carry out the enforcement.

Sir, the Member for Cheng San GRC, and concurrently the Chairman of Cheng San Town Council, wants to know if the fines collected for cases enforced by Town Councils can be given to Town Councils. Let me briefly explain. In the past, when the HDB undertook prosecution in court for cases enforced by HDB officers, the Government reimbursed HDB the total amount of fines collected by the courts. This was to defray HDB's enforcement as well as prosecution costs. But since 1st May this year, when littering offences were made compoundable, HDB need not prosecute any case in court. All cases enforced by HDB officers are now referred directly to the Ministry of the Environment for prosecution actions Consequently, Sir, HDB will be reimbursed $50 per case as decided by the Ministry of Finance on the basis of 50% of the compounded fine. This is to defray HDB's enforcement cost while the remaining 50% is to defray Environment's prosecution cost. By the same consideration, Sir, $50 per case will be reimbursed to Town Councils for all cases enforced by them or their managing agents.

Sir, the Member also wants to know with regard to the cost incurred by HDB in discharging its responsibilities under the EPHA. I am afraid I do not have the figures with me. All I know is that the reimbursement from Environment to the HDB in the last two years, prior to the introduction of compounding, was an average of about $600,000 per year.

I do not know whether the HDB can really estimate how much they have actually spent on enforcing littering offences. This is because the HDB officers empowered under the EPHA are not assigned solely to do enforcement work on littering and other public health offences. They have other jobs as well. Some of them are supervising contract workers, looking after hawker centres, attending to complaints, and so on and so forth. So I do not think HDB can really apportion the amount of money they have spent, to say that this is the amount they spend on enforcement against littering and other public health offences. I do not know whether my colleague, the Minister for National Development, would like to add to what I have just said.

The Member also wants to know whether the Government is prepared to give a subsidy to the Town Councils. At this point of time, Sir, the Government is only prepared to give 50% of the compounded fines arising from cases enforced by the Town Councils.

I think I have answered the questions. With regard to the Member for Potong Pasir, I must appreciate him mentioning that he is managing his Town Council. But I did not mention anywhere in my speech about EMS.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. - [Dr Ahmad Mattar].

Bill considered in Committee; reported without amendment; read a Third time and passed.