Date Published: 07 Mar 2012 Er Lee Bee Wah: Thank you, Sir. First of all, I would like to thank the Minister for giving residents in Nee Soon GRC a new hawker centre. I have two clarifications: first, I would like to ask if the Ministry would consider giving the residents living near the hawker centre some form of priority in running the hawker stalls. Next clarification is on “no smoking at parks”. Just now the Senior Minister of State mentioned that it will be carried out at some selected parks. I would like to ask: what are the criteria, and why is it that smoking is not banned in all the parks? Response by Minister Vivian Balakrishnan: I think the Member is aware that we intend to accept the recommendations and the management of the new centre should be by social enterprises, probably a co-operative, and I hope there will be more than one co-operative or other social enterprises that will step up to the plate. So these local decisions as to who to accept as a hawker, the food mix and pricing, I believe should be done at the local level. So I do not want, on the Ministry level, to be overly prescriptive. Her point on smoking, Ms Grace Fu expressed our position that in the long run, we want no smoking in public areas unless otherwise designated. In other words, today we have a list of areas where you are not allowed to smoke. In the future, I think we will have a positive list of areas where you are allowed to smoke and everywhere else, you are not allowed to do it. But we have to manage this transition , taking into account local conditions and local support for it. So that is why, for instance, hawker centres and parks, we want the local community to decide collectively and take ownership on whether they want to have a “Blue Ribbon” park or a “Blue Ribbon” hawker centre, and then it is a community decision. It is not something top-down that has been forced upon them. I believe we need to move towards such a system because you cannot have an NEA officer everywhere trying to enforce rules which the community is not prepared to support. So I have expressed our long-term position and that the transition will have to be guided by community support. On the pace and extent of the non-smoking zones, the community has to decide. Mr Low Thia Khiang: Sir, the Senior Minister of State earlier on responded to my cut on “midges” which has been a problem faced by Bedok Reservoir residents. Sir, I would like to complain to you that there is nothing new in her response to me. I read all the content from the newspapers. What I wanted to know is, what is the long-term solution to the problem? And I understand that they have engaged an external expert to do some research into the problem. May I know what is the progress so far? And please do not tell me that they are using pesticides again. They used it last year, but the problem remains the same. So what I want to know is: what can the residents at Bedok Reservoir area expect this year? Will we be facing the same problem again? Fire-fight the “midges” and going to fog every day? Sir, the next clarification is pertaining to water. The Minister said that PUB did not overcharge Singaporeans for water. He referred to the collection of Conservation Tax plus the waterborne fee and appliance fee. Perhaps, I think he should let us know what is the cost per cubic metre of water PUB produces and what is the effective tariff that PUB charges Singaporeans or the household users. What do I mean by effective tariff - you have a tariff on the first 40 cubic metres of water and different tariffs after that. That is tariff on the water, and that is excluding water conservation tax, appliance fee and waterborne fee. So if you take all that in, what is the effective tariff per cubic metre that you charge Singaporeans vis-a-vis the cost per cubic metre of water that PUB produces? Response by Minister Vivian Balakrishnan: Let me deal with the water issue. That is far more important, with due respect. You are aware of the tariffs that are charged. If you are not, it is all available in the Annual Report. It is important to go back to the overall system because we need to ensure that Singapore will have a secure and reliable supply of water even when contracts expire, even when we face droughts, and even if there are any accidents or other disasters in parts of our island. That should immediately tell you, it is not a simple matter of how much it costs to buy water from Malaysia, or to even get water from a desalination plant. You have to pay for the cost of an entire system. And this is all very transparent and it is laid before Parliament. It costs PUB $1.3 billion to run a water system that we have today. And it is also equally transparent that for a household that consumes less than 40 cubic metres a month, the tariff is $1.17 per cubic metre, plus a Water Conservation Tax. So they will end up paying about $1.52 per cubic metre. That is for potable water. For water that has to be treated, the Waterborne Fee is $0.28 per cubic metre. Then there is a Sanitary Appliance Fee of about $2.80 per latrine or water closet. Again, if you want, I can go through the figures with you to show that, on used water, we are not collecting what it costs to treat the water to a standard where it can be discharged into the sea. This is excluding the cost of treating it as NEWater and making it safe for use. So the figures are all there, and I would like you to go through this, in detail with me if you like, and we will show you that, in order to provide the water system which I have described, we still require tax subvention from Parliament. So, if you are proposing that we lower water tariffs, I would suggest that we do not, because let us talk about real life. In real life, the median 3-room HDB flat pays about $30 per month. Now we also have the U-Save scheme, part of the GST offset scheme, which gives between $110 (in 2007) and $240 (in 2012) a year. So what we have is a system in which a scarce, precious commodity is right-priced so people do not waste. At the same time, we have vouchers for the lower-income, so that people can always afford the water and electricity that they need. It is far better to do it this way than to do what many other countries have done, where they subsidise water or they give it at a fixed price, at a level which causes people to not regard it as something precious. If a leak springs up in your pipe, you just let it leak. I have lived in a country like that. More importantly, there is also no signal to the private sector to invest in infrastructure, to provide technology and infrastructure for the future. So the challenge for us is to make sure our system is resilient, that we right-price water, and that water remains affordable to everyone. On all these three counts, I submit that the answer is yes. If you are not convinced, I would be happy to go through in detail the finances of PUB. Clearly, there are some things which, for national security reasons, I cannot make public pronouncements on. But if you like, I will take you in confidence and show you that we have provided a safe, resilient, reliable water supply system. If you go through the information with me, I am pretty sure I can convince you of that. Response by SMS Grace Fu: Sir, we have been studying this problem of “midges” extensively with my colleagues in PUB and NEA. I myself, for example, have gone to Google to try and search for some of the scientific information that is out there. If you look at the studies that are out there, you will see that, actually, many teams are studying the problem of “midges”. In fact, there are many teams, not just in the tropics, that are studying it. As far as Denmark, teams are studying the problems of why we have a sudden increase in the population of such insects. Some have attributed this to climate change, rainfall, the amount of nutrients in the water. The truth is, I do not think anybody has been able to lay their hands on the exact cause of the explosion of “midges”. That is the reason why Mr Low will hear the same reasons in the House, and outside from the papers, because we are trying our best and explaining what we are doing. What we are doing right now with the use of larvacide is what we know at this point in time to be the most effective method. Of course, if the Aljunied Town Council is able to fumigate and destroy the adult population, then we will not have the larvae and the eggs being bred in the water. But is that a realistic goal? I think all of us who are involved in the management of municipal issues would know that we have not been able to wipe out the population of flies, mosquitoes and, now, probably “midges”.