ENVIRONMENT ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS (Rude and abrasive behaviour)

5. To ask the Minister for the Environment whether he is aware that enforcement officers of his Ministry, in the course of their duty, have acted in a very rude and abrasive manner towards hawkers and coffee shop operators and whether his Ministry will correct their behaviour.

Mr Chandra Das: Question No. 5, Sir.

The Minister for the Environment (Dr Ahmad Mattar): Mr Speaker, Sir, I would like to assure the Member for Potong Pasir, through his proxy, and indeed this House that we will always try to do our best in whatever we do, especially when serving members of the public. But sometimes we fall short of our ideals, Sir. As we all know, in any organisation, there will always be a few black sheep and it will not, therefore, be fair to generalise and white-wash the entire inspectorate force of my Ministry because of these few black sheep.

Sir, public health inspectors are performing a very demanding yet unpleasant job. Being enforcement officers, they can easily become targets of complaints by those whom they have to bring the law to bear. I must say that the public health inspectors have, in general, projected themselves rather well when dealing with hawkers, operators of food establishments and members of the public. However, having said this, I want to assure the House that my Ministry takes a very serious view against any officer found to be rude or arrogant. Every complaint received is thoroughly investigated by the Staff Inspectorate Unit of my Ministry.

For the past 12 months, Sir, my Ministry received complaints of alleged rudeness against six public health inspectors, who comprise less than 1% of the total public health inspectorate force. The six complaints were thoroughly investigated and found to be unsubstantiated. During the same period, Sir, my Ministry took disciplinary action against two public health inspectors and four public health overseers for various acts of misconduct. Another eight cases of misconduct are pending investigations.

For the information of the House, Sir, all rank and file of the public health inspectorate have been trained on communication skills and how to be tactful when dealing with members of the public, including hawkers and coffee shop operators.

The following Question stood in the name of Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon -