Who owns the drain?

SevenEleven SG · 2005-09-11T11:33:40+00:00

A make-up story at the meeting room. Town Council : If there is no drain or water in the drain then the dead leaves will not clog the drain. Therefore NEA a...

SevenEleven SG

Let me try to summarise the report in zhao pao paper today for the benefit to those who don't read the chinese paper. However if you do read chinese please see the full report below.
http://www.zaobao.com/sp/sp050910_510.html

The report say that fellow Singaporean living in Marsling were trying their best to keep the area mosquito free but they saw that there was a drain clogged with dead leaves and rubbish make the drain water stagnant and prone to mosquito breeding. So they complain to HDB who claim that the drain does not belong to them. So they went to the Town Council who claim that the drain does not belong to them too. After about a year of complaint, they reported to Ministry of Environment who would send someone to fog the area once a month. From the picture in the newpaper, the condition of the drain still remain the same.

Today, the ST reported that the PM is setting up a Inter-ministerial committee to fight Dengue fever. Maybe the first thing they can do is to identify who owns the drains.
Laughing

SnowFlag SG

That is basically what u get from the scholars Idea

the Bear SG

typical.. it takes a committee of expensive braindeaths to figure out who owns the drain..

when they can pay a sweeper a couple of bucks more a day to clear the drain...

it'll be cheaper than the stupid committee and the cleaner will be happier for the extra pay Laughing

and i bet the whole block won't mind chipping in a few cents a person to keep the damned drain clear

hisoka SG

not only will it take tons of expensive brain-deadians, it will also require at least 3 months for the investigation

LazerLordz SG

Such a Kafkaeqsue moment. Laughing Just pay the ah lao cleaning the drain la.

Atobe SG

Originally posted by LazerLordz:
Such a Kafkaeqsue moment. Just pay the ah lao cleaning the drain la.

The idiotic question remains - from which Ministry should the money come from so that 'ah lao' get the extra pay to clean out the drain ? Laughing

Even the million-dollar salaried PM could not give an answer - so he has to form a high powered inter-ministerial committee to look into this matter, and cut out all future attempts at shirking of responsibilities by the various ministries.

Will this inter-ministerial committee be a 'one-stop' point to tackle this mosquito problem, or will it result in a battle between the Committee, the MP, the Town Council and the HDB ?

LazerLordz SG

Let the NEA take care of the physical drains, and the PUB the water, and the Town Council the Ah Lao.

coffeeortea SG

omg man.. they keep pushing here and there. dont understand why they cant take up an important task. the citizens health are at risk.

SnowFlag SG

maybe to them, it isn't important.

If do, but no one on top sees it. So better not do Mr. Green

LinYu SG

So now we are gonna to know how they are spending the $7.5M for fighting Dengue Fever. First they will have to fight it out who should own those drains.
Laughing

Atobe SG

Originally posted by LinYu:
So now we are gonna to know how they are spending the $7.5M for fighting Dengue Fever. First they will have to fight it out who should own those drains.

Are those drains located in blocks that have a low voter turn-out for the Ruling Party, or perhaps those blocks were located in walk-over constituencies, so no need to place such high priority to resolve the drain ownership ?

A brilliant idea from a 1-Plus Million Dollar Salaried PM to get his Million Dollar Ministers and thousand dollared ministry officials, to spend thousands of dollars to hold meetings to plan strategies and tactics to combat mosquitoes.

ShutterBug SG

Want to know who owns the drain?

Take a 20 pound sledgehammer, and smash the blinking drain to rubbles, and you will soon hear the proper owner of that clogged drain, knocking at your door.

LinYu SG

I remember Koh Boon Wan spoke on TV saying that the solution to the Dengue Epidemic is easy. Seem that you will need six ministries to put the easy solution to action. That is easy.
Laughing

BillyBong SG

Privatisation is a wonderful thing....cut out the 'govt' from the equation and solve our own problems. Saves time and taxpayer's money.

This is the result of drawing too many lines over responsibilities. In the end, the govt agencies merely safeguard their own interest in the matter and the problem remains unsolved.

stellazio SG

Government owns it..Everything in sg owned by the government and so if hdb and environment under them..We should complain.. Laughing

sgdiehard SG

Let them solve this problem with the dengue fever first before private sector takes over. Right now it is clear that the residents do not own the drains around the building and it is up to town councils, hdb to decide who should clean the drain, if not clean, complain to mom. it is up to mom to kick as s. If still no action, call in the zhaobao reporters.

the Bear SG

so, there was a break-in at parliament and they realised there was no night watchman

they went out and hired a night watchman...

however, they realised the night watchman needed to be paid, so they set up a payroll section to do the paperwork for the night watchman

the payroll section needed telecommunications and an office, so they set up a whole office in one of the wings...

because they had to use one of the wings of the building, and to allocate money for the equipment, they started a committee in order to get the money during budget debates...

to have the committee, they needed a room, a director and some places to meet.. so they went ahead and hired a foreign talent to be the director and paid him a 7-figure annual fee with bonuses..

after a while, they realised how expensive it was.. so they decided to scale back and restructure...

therefore they retrenched the night watchman..

Laughing

LinYu SG

Take an ox knife to kill a chicken.
Laughing

Lowclassman SG

What just 1 + millions? I would say he has multi millions dollars income.

SevenEleven SG

Wow. The inter-ministerial commitee must be damn effective or maybe the zaobao report damn effective. Marsiling drain clogged is cleaned up. They must have worked out who should own those drains.
Laughing
(PS see zaobao report today on marsiling drain cleared)