MyPoint: Inculcate civic-mindedness

In his Rally speech, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong related an incident of a fishball stick that had been left on a walkway for more than a day ("New office to tackle estate matters"; Monday).

The district's mayor, on being alerted to the stick by a resident, found out that three agencies managed different parts of the walkway.

To avoid more such fiascos, a Municipal Services Office will be set up to get different public agencies to work more closely together.

This is all well and good, but my question is: Since the fishball stick was on a busy thoroughfare and was noticed by at least one resident, why didn't the person just pick it up and throw it into the dustbin?

Isn't this a whole lot easier than getting the mayor to call various government bodies?

It is vital to have inter-agency efficiency, but is it really necessary to create yet another agency? What about educating citizens to be more civic-minded?

Loh Toon Seng (Dr)

This article was first published on Aug 20, 2014.
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