"CLEAN TOILET CAMPAIGN"

Mr Harun bin A. Ghani asked the Minister for the Environment how successful the "Clean Toilet Campaign" has been and what further improvements can be made to ensure clean public toilets.

The Senior Minister of State for the Environment (Encik Sidek bin Saniff) (for the Acting Minister for the Environment): Sir, our public toilets are cleaner now than they were a few years ago. However, there is still room for improvement.

Surveys conducted annually, since 1996 when we launched the Clean Toilet Campaign, showed that there have been gradual improvements in the cleanliness of our public toilets.

Members of the public interviewed during the surveys have given higher scorings consistently over the last five years. Cleaners who maintain these toilets have also consistently rated the toilets to be cleaner over the years. ENV officers participating in the surveys have also independently rated the toilets and have also come up with similar scorings.

A number of public toilets in ENV and HDB hawker centers have been extensively upgraded and users interviewed have expressed that they are pleased with them. More will be done.

We will continue to push for clean public toilets in Singapore and will continue to require building managements to keep public toilets in clean and good working condition. Through public education programme, we will continue to remind the public to cooperate and help keep our public toilets clean.

Mr Harun bin A. Ghani: Sir, the Senior Minister of State mentioned that surveys were conducted. Could the Senior Minister of State give details about ratings given by ENV for the last five years?

Encik Sidek bin Saniff: Sir, the rating is based on a score of 0-10. On our part, we are very lucky that the scoring happens to be between 6 and 8. This score is given by three parties: ENV officers, cleaners and the users. For instance, in 1996, ENV scored 6.0; cleaners, 6.1; users, 6.8. Recently, we have 8.1 by ENV, 8.0 by cleaners and 8.3 by users. The scoring system maintains that 9.1-10 points is excellent; 8.1-9 points, good; 6.1-8 points, satisfactory; 4.1-6 points, not quite satisfactory; and 4 points and below, poor. We will try our best to do even better.