JAN 21 — Today is a school day, so all across the country many children attending public schools would be consuming unsafe drinking water or getting dehydrated. In our government schools, usually, piped water in the restrooms and the odd tap by the field are the only sources of free water.
The long-term implications — in personal health and obesity — will play out in time. The moral examination of us — the adults/taxpayers — to let the problem persist so long will not be pretty reading.
Despite the shocking willingness of the Ministry of Education to invest in physical constructs — which incidentally are constructed through the process of government tender, and please do read between the lines — there is no or very little in the way of funding for the installation and maintenance of water fountains/dispensers in schools. I’ll argue readily that water comes before air-conditioned halls, quickly-obsolete computer labs and teachers’ dining rooms.
I’ll argue, too, that teachers in my alma mater don’t care much for the health of the pupils since they’ve done nothing about the inoperable water fountains — which have not been serviced for the last two years.
My own school years were always about picking the least filthy faucet and hoping for the best. The cost to me is still unknown. In the passing decades since I left school, the physical state of piping in our schools I would wager has eroded like the aluminium taps in their loos.
Children are most vulnerable, indeed all of us need access to drinking water readily in tropical Malaysia.
The country is hot and humid all year round. Foreigners are advised by travel advisories to get enough fluids while in the country. However we actively deny and discourage our natives from consuming water.
Water is a right, is it not?
Access to free drinking water in government buildings, public areas and playgrounds is almost non-existent, while the price of bottled water (a bane rather than a boon) is prohibitive. In fact, the prevailing practice is to charge higher prices for the bottled water, many which have labels reading “this water has been sourced from tap water in Selayang.”
The affect is compounded since modern living consigns us to the workplace, school-grounds and living space for the majority of our day. The time we spend at home — the hours we have access to safe drinking water —is limited by that phenomenon.
Since we spend so much time out, society through its instrument of good, government, has to enable access while we are in the public sphere.
Which is why I would ask the Selangor government — since it’s my home state and one which adopts water as a serious policy issue — to ask all F&B outlets to provide clean drinking water to its patrons free (which would include school canteens), through the operation of law.
Right now, most F&B places — stalls, fast food outlets, restaurants, the LCCT etc. — either encourage the premium priced bottled water or charge irregularly for a glass of water.
The operators have realised that years of giving water free or charging nominally for a glass was not good business. They adopted in classic exploitive capitalist think approach —cannibalise consumers without regard to moral imperatives until they have empty wallets — of charging people substantially for the water.
Prices vary from 30 sen at your mamak lower grade to 50 sen plus tax in your top-tier mamak, but still dwarfed by the RM1 good restaurants extort from customers. I quipped to one manager that asking people to pay for drinking water when they charge RM24 for the pasta before “tax, service charge and tip” is the reason why he won’t see me in that restaurant ever again.
What will it cost the operator? Very little. And the customer may still choose to purchase bottled water, with the “Evian” there on the menu for those whose thirst can only be met by that which is imported. Just that your less discerning customers should be able to drink water and not worry about its cost.
This is not uncommon elsewhere in our region. Restaurants in the Philippines and Thailand generally don’t charge for drinking water. All fast food outlets in Manila have water fountains.
The cost to the operator to maintain the water fountains is minimal.
If the machine is not maintained well, then the operator is culpable. Just as he is if the water used to cook the restaurant food is unclean.
They just have to care about people. And when necessary care is missing then government must mandate reasonable laws to produce that care.
Obesity takes pole position in the national healthcare agenda — since it leads to diabetes, inconsistent blood pressure, heart problems, etc . The massive consumption of sugared drinks and the low intake of drinking water contribute to the individual’s medical collapse. Children with any allowance will pick sugared drinks over water when both items are priced similarly. It is by open access to drinking water you have a reasonable chance of leading children to better health choices.
Yet the Ministry of Health does not fret over the absence of free drinking water in the malls in the Klang Valley and elsewhere.
Drinking water laws will lead to the reduction of plastic bottle waste which is a serious environmental challenge. Our landfills are quickly filling up. People are not excited buying bottled water when they are in the public space, but the lack of options forces the choice on them.
Further like the Australian government, Selangor can impose a ban on the purchase of bottled water by state agencies. The presence of water dispensers and the requirement for caterers to supply drinking water at events will negate the need to purchase bottled water or the caterer purchasing it on behalf of the state.
All these can only augment the noble desire of Selangor to build a welfare state. It will also pressure the BN states to have these laws in the growing “Keeping up with the Joneses” politics in the country.
The beneficiaries can only be the rakyat.
I remember not fondly that all the officers of Majlis Perbandaran Sepang were indifferent when I proposed a drinking water by-law for the township. They said they had to find out what the operators felt about the proposal first, and that it is difficult to execute and that more importantly the state government has to initiate it and then instruct them. Then they would. They’d only do it if the Selangor government showed the political will.
So Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim, what say you?
*The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.
-- THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER
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