COS 2013 Debates: MEWR – Rats in HDB Estates (MP Pritam Singh)

By MP for Aljunied GRC, Pritam Singh
[Delivered in Committee of Supply on 12 March 2013]

Madam Chairperson,

In 1999, the then-Ministry of Environment set up a Rodent Eradication and Control Committee after identifying 11 areas in Singapore, which included HDB estates, overrun with rats. In 2004, a Straits Times report noted that 8,631 rat holes had been identified across the island, while separately noting that the Ministry had spent $280,000 to address the problem that year in five estates with NEA footing 75% of the bill, and Town Councils paying the other 25%. In 2009, a Sunday Times report observed that the rat problem in the Orchard Road shopping belt had worsened, and in 2010, NEA found 1,687 areas in Singapore populated by rats, three times more than the 443 that were found in 2009. More recently in November last year, Ang Mo Kio Hub was also hit by a rat problem.

With increased construction activity all over Singapore, there is a growing perception that the rat problem requires greater attention from the Ministry. The Minister only last month noted that 900 mosquito-breeding offences were detected in construction sites in 2012, with 626 being first-time offenders. This suggests that there is scope for greater public health scrutiny of construction sites in general, especially those that are located in or close to HDB housing estates. With larger numbers of people on the island anticipated in the years to come, and more food sources inevitably available, there is a concern that the number of rats will be on the rise in future. I would like to request the Ministry to step up in its anti-rodent enforcement and education efforts, and to consider raising the profile of these efforts to the level of its anti-dengue efforts, so as to work towards a cleaner Singapore going forward. It would also be helpful if the Minister could update us on the number of annual cases of leptospirosis and murine typhus infections – both being rat-transmitted diseases – which was reported in 2008 as being between 10 to 30. In addition, as many anti-rodent education efforts centre on the proper disposal of waste, there are likely to be other positive public health spin-offs than can buttress the effort to keep Singapore clean.