Residents may end up paying more in service and conservancy charges if the problem of high-rise littering gets worse.
This possibility was raised by Parliamentary Secretary for National Development Dr Maliki Osman when he launched an anti-litter initiative in Admiralty on Sunday.
Grassroots organisations will be using community pressure, like roping in residents to keep a lookout for those who litter from their flats.
The number of complaints against high-rise littering island-wide has been increasing over the last few years.
In 2008, there were 2,499 complaints.
This jumped to 3,474 complaints last year.
In the first half of this year, there have been 1,965 complaints.
Dr Maliki said: “When we have a littering problem and we have a cleanliness problem, the conservancy costs will go up because the workers will have to come in more regularly.
“That would increase the cost because from a normal cleaning situation where you just clean the common corridors and the lift lobbies, now you have to go into the individual households to try and clean it.
“This is unnecessary for the residents because the higher the cost, it will be transferred to the residents. We do not want that to happen.
“We want them to try and minimise the need for them to pay extra just because of irresponsible behaviour. At this point in time, we have not raised the conservancy charges at all because we have been able to manage, but I think we can continue to contain it even better if residents take responsibility.
“The chances of increasing costs will be there if we do not contain this, because the idea is to look at the natural situation where previously you will not need workers to go into individual households.
“Now, (in) one HDB block, you have an average of 100 units. Just imagine if half of that required cleaning. The costs will tremendously increase.
“If we do not need that, then we can actually reduce the cost and maintain the cleanliness at the common corridors spaces and common area, and we really do not need to increase costs if everybody is responsible.”
Source: Channelnewasia
