Provide toilet as public facility

Here is a photo of a public toilet that requires the user to pay an entrance fee of 10 cents. If you do not have any 10 cents coin, bad luck to you. You better find someone willing to give you change. I do not know if the gate accepts $1 coin. If it does, it will certainly not give you any change. If you have no coin, you have to find other ways to ease yourself.

I have always held the view that a public toilet is a necessity and should be made available for public use without any charge. Just like breathing air or walking in the park.

When owners of public buildings started to charge a fee to pay for an elderly person to keep the toilet clean, I did not mind this approach to creating jobs. The next ugly step was to eliminate the job and collect the fee as additional revenue.

When I stayed in a HDB flat 30 years ago, there were regular complaints from residents about peeing in the lifts. HDB had to install cameras in the lifts to discourage this bad habit.

Nobody thought then that the people who pee in the toilets were probably children or salesmen who were  not able to find a public toilet nearby. This problem was solved when public toilets were made available at most void desks, to be maintained by the operator of a convenience store.

The prevailing mindset in Singapore is to find all ways to make money and more money. I hope that the people in charge also consider the need to provide public facilities, such as public toilets, without creating too much hindrance on their use.