SIBU: Maintaining the cleanliness and beautification of Sibu is a shared responsibility between the public and the local council, said Deputy Minister of Public Health, Housing and Local Government, Michael Tiang Ming Tee.
Tiang said many people simply put the responsibility on the government agencies to do the enforcement and this puts a heavy burden on the local council.
“We must realise that the more important education (cleanliness) is at home, school or even at some of the NGO (non-governmental organisation),” he said when met by reporters during the handing over of the Sibu Municipal Council (SMC) public toilet star grading certificates to three Petronas station today.
Tiang said the SMC public toilet star grading certificate is to encourage the public and agencies to keep the public toilet to a certain level of hygiene and cleanliness.
“The star rating certificate is the report card but what is very important is the process of education -educating the public and the business operators to keep their toilet clean.
“We just don’t go to the coffee shop and then complain about their toilet being very dirty; we have to ask ourselves ‘are we keeping our own private toilet clean and hygiene as to the standard of what we expect?’” he said.
Tiang described the initiative taken by Petronas in ensuring all their petrol station is clean and providing public toilet with good facilities is a good effort.
Meanwhile, SMC chairman, Clarence Ting said that the cleanliness of the public toilet is reflective of the town’s image.
“If you keep it clean it is a very important image for our town. Our area people will talk about all these places ‘You know when we go to Sibu the toilet is very clean’. That is very crucial for the image of Sibu,” he said.
He also pointed out that Sibu nationally has been rated as one of the 10 cleanest cities in Malaysia.
“I am very proud of it but this is an ongoing process – for us to do better than we have to continually change the people’s mindset and improve the standard of cleanliness,” he said.
