HIDDEN_HEAD L - MINISTRY OF THE ENVIRONMENT

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Head L - Ministry of the Environment (cont.) -

Resumption of Debate on Question [15th March, 2004],

That the total sum to be allocated for Head L of the Main Estimates be reduced by $100." - [Dr Teo Ho Pin].

Question again proposed.

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The Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment (Encik Mohamad Maidin B P M): Sir, yesterday, we ended the day after the slow and steady speech, probably the slowest and steadiest, by the Chairman of the GPC for the Environment, Dr Teo Ho Pin, who raised some issues concerning efforts on pest control andasked what measures were undertaken and how effective they have been.

Sir, crows, cockroaches and rats multiply when food, water and shelter are easily available, and they can feed on garbage in refuse bags that are placed on the floor and not into bins with a tight cover. And food debris left exposed on the floor and not covered properly are also potential food sources. Hence, the most effective way to curb their population growth is to ensure that our environment is kept clean and hygienic. By handling our waste properly and not littering, we can all play a part to keep these pests under control by denying them a ready source of food. In this way, we can all help stem the potential spread of known and unknown diseases by such pests.

Sir, on measures to control crows and cockroaches, I am happy to report that there has been some steady progress over the years. NEA started crow culling in December 2001. It engages CISCO which has four shooters deployed for shooting every day. On weekends, about 30 members of the Singapore Gun Club join in to help. In the last three years, we have successfully reduced the crow population by about 80%, from an estimated 120,000 down to 22,000, and we expect to reduce the crow population further down to about 10,000 in five years' time. To prevent crows from increasing in numbers again, NEA will continue to cull crows regularly. NEA also checks all its markets and food centres as well as licensed food shops regularly to ensure that there are no rodent or cockroach infestations. Any house

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keeping irregularities that could cause infestations are rectified, and rat poisons and insecticides are used to keep the pests under control.NEA also educates its licensees on proper refuse management and disposal. Licensees will be given demerit points for pest infestations found in their premises. Town councils also fog the refuse chutes in HDB blocks regularly to get rid of cockroaches in the chutes and the surrounding areas.

Going forward, like the point mentioned by Dr Teo yesterday, it is not sufficient nor sustainable for NEA and the other public agencies to tackle the problem alone. Through our on-going Singapore's OK campaign, we will continue to involve the grassroots and the local community to encourage residents and shops to play their part by not littering and ensuring that all food wastes are kept in covered bins. Residents and shop tenants should also ensure that their refuse is properly bagged before throwing it into the refuse chutes or bins. It is only with the joint effort of all parties that we can look forward to a Singapore that is truly pest-free.

The Minister for the Environment (Mr Lim Swee Say): Sir, yesterday, Mr Iswaran asked for an update on industry development and corporatisation of incineration plants. I am happy to report to the House that the environment industry in Singapore is progressing well. The industry has grown. Five out of the top 10 global companies are now operating in Singapore. The industry is also becoming more innovative and more capable. They also undertake activities with higher technology contents, for example, the trial of the fuel cell vehicles by DaimlerChrysler and the use of the incineration bottom ash for construction of roads. We will continue to build up the capacity, expertise and experience in the industry through a DBOO (Design, Build, Operate and Own) programme, for areas

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such as desalination, NEWater and incineration of wastes.

Mr Iswaran asked whether corporatisation is still on track. Sir, we have earlier announced that we intended to corporatise 30% of our incineration capacity and privatise 70% of capacity. This will proceed. In fact, we are now reviewing whether the role of the private sector could be further increased. Yesterday, Mr Iswaran highlighted several concerns of the industry - asset heavy, potential demand could be affected by our efforts to promote recycling and so on. These are valid concerns. On the part of the ENV, we will take these into consideration as we formulate the final plan for corporatisation and privatisation. We want to do this carefully and do it right, because we have only one chance to privatise our incineration plants. Once it is privatised, we cannot privatise them for the second time. Therefore, we are going to do it very carefully and take inputs from all angles. At the same time, we will study the experience of other countries.

Sir, Dr Teo Ho Pin asked for a progress update on the 1,000 by 1,000 programme, which is our effort to redesign jobs in the environment sector for Singaporean workers. The Ministry of Manpower and the Workforce Development Agency are certainly doing a lot in the areas of employment and job matching. Other Ministries, including the Ministry of the Environment, are also playing their part to contribute to the effort. As far as the environment industry is concerned, it is an industry with the reputation of offering dirty jobs with lousy pay. But, as mentioned by Dr Teo yesterday, the industry today is going through a very rapid pace of transformation. We are seeing higher technology content, a faster pace of innovation as well as a higher level of mechanisation. What this means is that

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the industry has tremendous potential to offer good jobs at decent pay.

Dr Teo mentioned that in time to come we will need to have more specialists to support the growth of the industry. I fully agree. In fact, the development of a skilled manpower base is critical for the industry to become a more productive industry and one that is more competitive and yet, at the same time, offer our environment workers a better quality of life and standard of living. With that in mind, we set ourselves the challenge of creating 1,000 jobs paying at least $1,000 in September last year. This programme is known as 1,000 by 1,000. This is a 3P collective effort. From the public sector, we have the Ministry of Manpower, the Workforce Development Agency and the NEA. From the private sector, we have Waste Management and Recycling Association of Singapore (WMRAS). On the part of the people sector, the CDCs and town councils are all playing a very active part in this programme. Basically, we are trying to reduce the mismatch between jobs and workers. On the one hand, we would like to redesign the jobs in the industry, so that they can be of higher productivity and offer better pay and yet, at the same time, we have to retrain the workers, so that they are better skilled and can take on these jobs. I am happy to say that the collective effort on job redesign is progressing well in terms of mechanisation of the waste collection function and conservancy cleaning. There is a town council project chaired by Mr Ang Mong Seng, together with various town councillors, to look into how we can make the jobs in conservancy cleaning more attractive and, in the process, encourage more locals to take on these jobs.

On the part of skills upgrading for workers, we have so far implemented 19 skills standards under the National Skills

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Recognition System. So far, more than 600 workers have been trained. For hawker centre cleaning, over time, the cleaning contractors would have to make sure that more than 50% of their workers are NSRS-certified within four months of taking on the contract. In the case of waste collection, our long-term target is to aim for 100% NSRS certification.

Dr Teo asked for the progress of the 1,000 by 1,000. Sir, progress has been promising since the launch in October last year. So far, we have been able to match 307 jobs to the retrenched workers, with each being paid more than $1,000. We hope that more can be done in the future. We hope that in time to come we can go beyond 1,000 for 1,000. We look at 1,000 by 1,000 as the first step because, if we can succeed in redesigning 1,000 jobs paying at least $1,000, that would lay the foundation for us to take the second step, which is 1,200 for 1,200, ie, redesign 1,200 jobs paying at least $1,200 per month. When we have reached that, we would be ready to go on to the third step, ie, 1,500 by 1,500, then 2,000 by 2,000. In time to come, we hope that the environment sector will indeed be transformed into a sector that offers jobs that are more productive, equipped with better tools and, at the same time, can be a source of employment for more Singaporeans.

Sir, Dr Teo asked about the progress of the ASEAN Sustainable Cities programme. It is progressing quite well. Since the launch of the ASEAN Sustainable Cities programme, Singapore has been appointed by our ASEAN member countries to coordinate this programme. The programme has attracted not only interest within ASEAN, our ASEAN+3 partners - China, Japan and Korea - have also expressed interest. Last year, when we were at the ASEM meeting, our European counterparts

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likewise expressed interest. In other words, this ASEAN Sustainable Cities programme has the potential of not only promoting best practices within ASEAN and within Asia, it can in fact be a platform to facilitate the sharing of best practices across Asia and Europe as well.

Sir, I now move on to the Singapore's OK campaign. Yesterday, Mdm Cynthia Phua asked whether Singapore is more OK. The Singapore's OK programme was launched in May last year to enhance the cleanliness and hygiene standards in Singapore, not through fines or enforcement, but through community leadership and personal ownership. In the last seven months, 6,200 grassroots leaders and volunteers under the People's Association have staged 1,200 activities to reach out to more than one million people. Today, the hostels, pre-schools and food courts are 100% OK. Even in the case of the construction sites, condominiums and restaurants, they are now more than 90% OK.

Mr Ang Mong Seng asked, how about public toilets? I am happy to say that even our public toilets have improved tremendously. As of today, 92% of our public toilets are OK.

Sir, we are happy that Singapore is indeed more OK. According to the regional offices of the NEA, they observed fewer people spitting on the roads and, at the same time, some of our more litter-prone areas are seeing less litter now. eg, Hougang Mall, Holland Village and Clementi Town Centre. These are indeed very encouraging signs.

Yesterday, Mdm Cynthia Phua also asked what plans we have to bring the Singapore's OK campaign to a higher plane of achievement. This is a very important point, because we must always remind ourselves that no country is virus-proof, and Singapore is no exception. This is because the threat can come from

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known and unknown viruses, from new and mutated viruses. We do not know when they will strike. We also do not know how they will spread. But one thing we do know is that if we can keep our living environment cleaner and more hygienic, we will make it more difficult for viruses to grow and for infectious diseases to spread. In other words, even though we cannot be virus-proof, we can do our best to become more virus-resistant.

11.15 am

Some Members may ask what is the difference between virus-proof and virus-resistant. Sir, when I was young, my first watch, given by my father, was a very nice Seiko watch. I was very happy as it was the first time I had a watch on my wrist. So everywhere I went, I made sure that the watch was on my wrist. One day, I went to the Farrer Park public swimming pool to swim. When I was young, I was not a good swimmer. There were a big pool and a shallow pool. The shallow pool was about one metre deep so it was quite safe. I went to the shallow pool and because I liked my watch so much, I left it on. After swimming for a while in this shallow pool, I found, to my horror, that water actually seeped into the watch. I was very upset. I went to the shop dealer and demanded for an explanation. The shop owner looked at me and asked, "What has happened to your watch?" I said, "I went swimming at Farrer Park yesterday with my watch on." He said, "No, you are not supposed to swim with your watch on." But I said, "This watch is water-resistant." He said, "Yeh, it is water-resistant but it is not water-proof." He said that if the watch is water-proof we can wear the watch for swimming and diving. But for water-resistant, it is only resistant against raindrops but not in a swimming pool.

Likewise, in our battle against virus, no country can claim to be virus-proof.

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No country can say, "Look, no virus can attack this country." As I have mentioned, there will be new and mutated viruses. But every country obviously wants to do its best to be as virus-resistant as possible so that hopefully, we will be able to reduce and minimise the outbreak of viruses and infectious diseases.

Therefore, it is important, as Mdm Cynthia Phua mentioned, that we must press on with Singapore's OK to strive for 100% for all our public places. In the coming years, we aim to increase our attention in four areas. These are our four priority areas.

The first priority area is the hawker centres and wet markets because they are one of our weak links today. Today, 15% of the food centres and 37% of markets in Singapore are still not OK due to poor housekeeping. What NEA, together with Town Councils, will be doing is to improve the housekeeping standards and, at the same time, increase the frequency of major washing. Instead of once or twice a year, we intend to increase it to three times a year. Hopefully, in time to come, many of our hawker centres and wet markets will be OK too.

Sir, there is another reason why we should do our best to make sure that our hawker centres are OK. Recently, my new Permanent Secretary, BG Tan Yong Soon, told me very excitedly,"Minister, you know, there is something great about hawker centres." I asked, "What is so great about our hawker centres?" He said, "Our hawker centres are now in the same class as the Lake District in England, the North Pole in Norway, the Pyramids in Egypt, the Great Wall of China, Taj Mahal of India and the Grand Canyon of USA." I asked, "Are you all right or not? What are you talking about?" He shared with me this book which just came out in the market. It is entitled, " One thousand places to see before you die ". All the places that I have mentioned

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are in this book. When we turn to the pages on Singapore, there are two places in Singapore which everybody in this world should see before they die. One is the Raffles Hotel and the other is Singapore's hawker centres.

Sir, the food we have in the hawker centres today is not just our way of life but it is a unique way of Singapore's life. I think the Singapore Tourism Board, in an effort to promote "Uniquely Singapore" will pay attention to our hawker centres too.

Mr Zainul Abidin asked for the progress of our Hawkers Upgrading Programme (HUP). I am happy that the programme is progressing well. So far, 59, out of 113 hawker centres have either been upgraded or under development or earmarked to be upgraded. Mr Zainul also asked whether it is the intention to centralise the management of all the hawker centres including HDB hawker centres under one agency. The answer is yes. Starting from 1st April, the management of the 92 HDB hawker centres will come under NEA as well.

Mr Ang Mong Seng asked whether, after the centralisation and consolidation, the NEA can take over the functions from the town councils. The answer is no, because most of the HDB hawker centres are located in our HDB estates and it is not the NEA's intention to reduce the community ownership and links in these hawker centres. So the role of the town councils will not change.

Sir, Mr Ang Mong Seng and Mr Wee Siew Kim also asked whether we will build new wet markets and hawker centres. There is no plan to do so. In our newer housing estates today, the private sector is basically the one to gauge the demand and from there, they set up

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coffee shops, air-conditioned food courts and supermarkets to meet the demand of the community. This will continue. What the Government will do is to continue to zone sites for commercial development and to allow the private operators to meet this demand by setting up appropriate types of eating and marketing facilities. But as far as the older estates are concerned, the Government-operated hawker centres will continue to be upgraded so that the private sector-operated coffee shops and food courts, and the Government-owned hawker centres and wet markets can co-exist and compete in a healthy manner.

Sir, during the MTI's Committee of Supply, Mr Wee Siew Kim asked whether ENV has any intention to bring back mobile hawkers. Let me explain here that our main concern is public health, especially for the sale of cooked food. Thirty years ago, in 1974, ENV stopped issuing licences for mobile hawkers for the sale of food, ice-cream, bread, and so on. Ten years ago, in 1994, ENV conducted an island-wide registration of all stationary street hawkers and vendors, like cobblers, newspaper vendors, and so on. They are granted non-transferable permits that are subjected to annual renewal. In some cases, due to road safety considerations, they were also re-sited.

Since 1996, ENV stopped issuing any new licence. However, in 2000, in response to various appeals by Members of Parliament, grassroots leaders and others, ENV started to allow some of these itinerant ice-cream vendors to operate in the town council area, with the support of the town councils. I am happy to say that to-date, over the last 3-4 years, we have issued 260 permits for them to sell ice-cream within the town council area. Last night, I saw one of them, Mdm Lin Huji on TV News. She is operating in Marine Parade. I looked at the stall she is operating. It is very well

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designed. When she was handling the ice-cream, she was wearing gloves. All the paper waste is properly collected. That is the way to go. Through their own efforts, they are able to earn a living while, at the same time, taking care of the environment.

However, Sir, I want to say that every year, ENV also receives many complaints regarding illegal hawking. In fact, every year, more than 3,000 of them come from shopkeepers and members of the public. This is due to unfair competition posed by the street hawkers to the shops. Therefore, on the one hand, ENV is receptive to the idea of increasing the number of licences for the mobile hawkers but, at the same time, we have to make sure that the situation does not get out of control, whether it is from the viewpoint of public health or from the standpoint of obstruction to pedestrians, or unfair competition to the shopkeepers.

What we will do is to take it one step at a time, gradually. We have to make sure that we allow the situation to evolve. What NEA intends to do now is to extend the arrangement that we have with town councils to the other public places, such as parks, car parks and pedestrian malls. We would also like to extend the list of items, maybe from ice-cream to other items which are not easily perishable and unlikely to cause public health problems. For example, these could include pre-packed snacks, candies, biscuits, canned drinks and even kacang putih . Along this line, last month, ENV met with NParks, LTA, URA and HDB and they are now working out the guidelines and details. Depending on the response from the public, we may also have to put in place a system for allocation.

Mr Ang Mong Seng asked whether we will do more to encourage more public toilets to be OK. The answer is yes. In fact, public toilets are the second area of our priorities in the coming years. So far,

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out of the 29,000 public toilets, 26,600 are already OK, about 92%. We will continue to reach out to the remaining 8% to push for 100% OK. At the same time, the upgrading of public toilets at coffee shops is also progressing well. As of now, about 350 coffee shops have upgraded their public toilets – about one out of every four. We have just extended this programme by one more year and, hopefully, more will take part.

Sir, let me move on to the third area, which is the point brought up by Dr Teo Ho Pin regarding pest control measures and what more can be done to engage all the stakeholders. Sir, our war against the rodents will be the third area of priority in the coming years. Our target is to bring down the number of burrows per precinct to less than five. That is our target. As of today, out of the 16 town council estates, only three town council estates are able to meet this target. For the rest, we have about six to 41 burrows per precinct. So there is still a lot of work to be done. We believe that this can be done. We can succeed in reducing the number of burrows per precinct because, over the last couple of years, we have been focusing on the hotspot areas and we are achieving fairly good results. For example, if we were to go to Holland Village, we used to have 32 burrows in that area, but it is now down to eight; Chinatown, from 45, now down to six; Geylang Serai, from 28, down to one. Our challenge is to spread this success to the other areas as well.

The key reasons why we have succeeded in some of these hotspot areas are, firstly, there were regular checks by the town councils, pest control companies and NEA. Secondly, we have good housekeeping by the shopkeepers. Thirdly, there was proper handling of food waste by the waste collectors and the cleaners. And lastly, there is no littering or leaving behind of food for strays by members of the public. What we have to

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do is to continue in this effort. I am happy to say that we have decided to launch a new initiative under the Singapore's OK, to be known as "Rat Attack". This "Rat Attack" will start with a pilot in five town councils – one each in each of the CDC districts. This "Rat Attack" will be conducted under joint ownership of the pest control companies, grassroots organisations, shopkeepers, food shop operators, public waste collectors, hawkers and the market stallholders.

NEA will co-fund this "Rat Attack" exercise with the town councils, using the 3P Partnership Fund of NEA which I mentioned yesterday. This is an eight-month programme, starting this month. It will go through four months of intensive control, followed by another four months of maintenance. From there, we will then assess the effectiveness of this programme before we roll out to the other areas.

Sir, let me come to the fourth area of priority in the coming year, which is to address the dengue situation in Singapore. As I have mentioned, the dengue outbreak in the region started two years ago. However, I am happy to say that the situation in Singapore has shown signs of improvement. For example, in the first 10 weeks of this year, on the average, we have 68 cases per week, compared to 85 per week the same time last year. In the last four weeks, the average number has continued to drop to 61 per week.

Sir, some Members asked yesterday whether it is possible to stop the importation of dengue cases from our region. The answer is no. Why? Because 90% of the people bitten by Aedes mosquitoes and infected with dengue viruses do not show any symptom. In other words, not everybody who is infected by the dengue virus will

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come down with the dengue symptoms. 90% have no symptom. Therefore, it is very difficult to detect who are the ones who actually carry the virus in their bodies. What we can do is to continue to step up surveillance, to identify hotspots and to intensify our inspections. Last year, NEA inspected more than 300,000 premises. In February 2004 alone, they inspected more than 19,000 premises. Sir, the encouraging sign is that breeding grounds are beginning to decrease in some of the places. For example, in our schools, in 1999, on the average, one out of seven schools was found to breed mosquitoes. Today, it has come down to 5%, or one in 20. Of course, we will continue to bring it down. Construction sites have dropped by half in terms of the frequency of mosquito breeding, from 13% in 1999 to less than 7% now. What is even more encouraging, Sir, is that we are seeing more active participation by the community. For example, even our school children are now getting involved through the programme known as the Mossie Buster. I was very happy to see that in the latest issue of the Thumbs Up there is a big write-up on how our kids are now helping to fight this war against dengue. If we look at their faces, they were really keen and interested in what they were doing. This is the kind of effort we should do more and more in our community.

Sir, what is the next thing we should do? Our next target in our war against dengue is to target our homes. Why do I say so? Over the years, we were surprised to find that the percentage of households breeding mosquitoes has been on the increase. For example, if we look at HDB flats, it has more than tripled fromsix in 1,000 households to 18 per 1,000 households. In the case of the condominiums, it has more than doubled, from 12 per 1,000 households to 26 per 1,000. The landed estates, likewise, doubled from 19 per 1,000 households in 1999 to 47 per 1000 now. What this

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means is that if we are not able to contain and reduce the breeding of mosquitoes in the household, then we are not going to get too far in our ability to contain and reduce the number of dengue cases.Sir, with that in mind, we have again decided to launch another new war campaign against the mosquitoes, and this is known as the Mossie Attack. Mossie Attack will start with 10 constituencies. We will partner with the dengue prevention volunteer groups in these constituencies, grassroots organisations and residents. Basically, the key targets will be our homes, whether they are landed properties, condominiums or HDB estates. This will be a four-month programme starting in April this year. We will do a survey before and after the campaign to measure the improvement. What we intend to do is, for example, to organise gotong royong sessions to bring the residents together so that they can learn how to look out for breeding grounds, and to get rid of stagnant water. By the way, we intend to include the maids as well in this training exercise. We will organise exhibitions.

Yesterday, Mdm Cynthia Phua asked whether we can enforce the removal of gutters in all the landed properties. Sir, I think the answer is no because, while we can discourage the installation of gutters for new developments, I think it is difficult for us to force all owners to remove their existing gutters. But what we can do is to promote community projects and efforts to keep the situation under control. Take, for example, one of the areas under Mdm Cynthia Phua, known as Limbok Terrace. Under the leadership of Mdm Cynthia Phua, the grassroots leaders, NEA, PUB and BCA have come together and are now working on an information kit on how to repair and maintain the gutters. There would also be a list of contractors so that those who need to repair and maintain their gutters will know who to contact. Of course, for those who feel it is difficult to maintain the gutters, maybe

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they can decide to remove the gutters without being forced to do so.

Sir, I think the community does have vested interest in improving the situation because a study shows that if more than 5% of the households in a neighbourhood were to breed mosquitoes, then the probability of a dengue outbreak in that neighbourhood is a lot higher. So, we hope that the information kit will help to spread the message. As of now, our target is to get the information kit ready, hopefully, by the end of this month when the Task Force next meets. It can be shared with the other estates as well.

Sir, let me end by saying this. While we can talk about Singapore's OK, hawker centre upgrading programme, toilet upgrading programme, Rat Attack, Mossie Attack, and so on, but at the end of the day, it is very important that we do not forget that we are our biggest enemy. Why do I say so? I say so because Singapore cannot be OK, unless I am OK and you are OK. But the question now is: how could we make every Singaporean OK? Yesterday, Mr Iswaran asked for an update on enforcement action. Yes, maybe if we introduce more fines, longer corrective work orders, stepped-up enforcement, then the frequency of violation will drop. But I do not think that can solve the problem fundamentally.

As I have mentioned yesterday, just like the World Trade Centre, when it was first constructed, the engineers could not make the lift go any faster. At the end of the day, they solved the problem by installing mirrors on the walls of the lifts so that the people in the lifts could look at themselves in the mirror, and before they realised it, they are already at the top of the World Trade Centre building. They therefore stopped asking for faster lifts. Sir, the same will apply to fines.

No matter what we do with fines, no matter how much enforcement we do,

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there is a limit to which fines and enforcement can help to change the behaviour of Singaporeans. Today, we are seeing more and more Singaporeans looking to NEA to clean up the irresponsible acts of their fellow residents. The NEA has a hotline 1800-Call NEA. Over the last few months, we have extended the working hours of the hotline. Today you can call 1800-Call NEA, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Sir, the hotline is now 24 by 7. We are now receiving more calls. In fact, last year, we received more than 112,000 calls. We are now providing faster service response as well because the public expects that. As a result, we are now responding to 90% of the calls within three days. If there is a complaint about mosquito breeding, the problem will be attended to. If there is a complaint about illegal dumping or smelly waste, we will solve all these problems within three days. But my question is this: how much more can NEA cope with higher expectations of the public and greater demand, if the number of irresponsible acts in the community keeps increasing? I do not think this is sustainable.

Sir, the mother of all weak links in our environment really is our failure so far to get rid of all anti-social habits in our community. Maybe some of you might suggest that we put up mirrors, just like the World Trade Centre, all over our community so that all those irresponsible Singaporeans will be able to look at themselves in the mirror to see for themselves what kind of damage they are doing to the environment and what kind of threat they are posing to our public health. But, I think you will agree with me that it is too expensive to do so. However, we cannot give up on our effort to change the behaviour of these irresponsible Singaporeans. In fact, we are not giving up. What we will do is continue to do our best to achieve a

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fundamental shift away from this anti-social behaviour among our people. While we cannot put up a mirror for them to see themselves, we can help them understand that their anti-social behaviour is actually not only weakening our environment but, more importantly, our defence in the serious war against viruses and infectious diseases.

Sir, I am happy that we are making progress with Singapore's OK. The next step is to invite all Singaporeans to take a copy of the Singapore Clean Card. This is a very important card because this Singapore Clean Card will help them understand all the challenges we face in keeping the Singapore environment going for a long time to come. At the same time, this Singapore Clean Card would also serve as their boarding pass to the jumbo jet co-piloted by the 3P owners, known as "Our Environment". Sir, I hope that we can all work together. Let us all strive for the day when every anti-social behaving Singaporean would stop littering, spitting, dirtying our toilets and public areas, breeding mosquitoes, leaving food behind for strays, crows, rats, and so on. That day is a day worth working and striving for, because that is the day when all Singaporeans can proudly say - Singapore is truly OK.

11.30 am

Dr Teo Ho Pin (Holland-Bukit Panjang): Sir, I would like to thank the Minister and Senior Parliamentary Secretary for their comprehensive answers they have given to all the questions. I also would like to commend the Ministry for the good work they have done to make Singapore clean and green. I hope the Rat Attack among the five town councils would not lead to a rat race, otherwise the remaining 11 town councils will be receiving a lot of rats.

Sir, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

The sum of $473,759,650 for Head L ordered to stand part of the Main Estimates.

The sum of $1,403,888,900 for Head L ordered to stand part of the Development Estimates.