Residents received this notice from the town council last week to explain a disruption in the cleaning services. The New Paper offers a more unsavoury reason for the stoppage. Excerpts:
"Almost all the cleaners in her neighbourhood had quit because the company they worked for had allegedly not paid them for months. This left no one to clear the chutes...
A check with the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) confirmed that 68 Bangladeshi workers had lodged claims against their employer, Harvest Integrated Services... The affected town councils had engaged Harvest to do conservancy work in their estates.
Ang Mo Kio resident Lai Ngak Bong, 67, a retiree, said he noticed that no one had been sweeping the common areas and carpark. 'After the Sky God's birthday (last week), there were offerings and burnt paper left everywhere, but nobody swept it,' he said in Mandarin...
... this is not the first time Harvest has faced similar complaints. 'There were 30 salary claims lodged against the same company last year.
The New Paper on Sunday approached a different cleaner from Harvest, a Chinese national, who said he had not had any problems receiving his $800 monthly salary. He then called his boss to the scene. When the middle-aged man arrived, his first question was: 'Are you from MOM?' When we identified ourselves and asked about the alleged salary non-payment, his response was: 'No comment.' He then drove off. Efforts to reach Harvest Integrated's office on the phone later were unsuccessful.
No indication is given as to whether the earlier complaints ended with justice for the workers. There's surely enough spare cash lying around to compensate them for their woes. The clogged chutes are one thing, but surely the accumulated rubbish in the lifts, corridors and trash-lined lawn behind the block are the very doing of the residents? Forty years after the first Keep Singapore Clean campaign, policies of punitive persuasion still fail to convince folks young and old that littering is anything more than a surreptitious act for which increasingly few are called to account. For many, it seems the state of their trash is as good as the waste of their minds.
So it looks like English is the official language in Singapore. Why is that?
Posted by: Aydin | 26 February 2008 at 06:06 AM
cos this was once Her Majesty's empire...
Posted by: budak | 26 February 2008 at 08:10 AM
This is probably the result of the lowest possible tender accepted by the town councils. Of course, the businessman wants the maximum possible profits. The town councils can drag payments up to 90 days.
Left no money, right no money.
And the workers get screwed. The residents get screwed too.
Posted by: toro | 26 February 2008 at 11:26 AM