Member of Parliament for Nee Soon GRC Lee Bee Wah was criticised on her Facebook page by cat feeders after she said in Parliament that she wanted the Agri-Food and Veterinary (AVA) to disallow cat feeders to leave food unattended for two hours in areas that have rat problem.
Mentioning this on her Facebook page on Wednesday (13 February), MP Lee said that she has been trying to get AVA to stop this practice for months but was unable.
“I am glad that SPS said in Parliament yesterday that the two hours is not applicable in areas with rat problem. This will be very helpful in our fight to solve the rat problem,” she wrote.
She added, “Good to protect animals but we need to strike a balance. Please do not forget to take care of our residents’ safety and hygienic living environment.”
On 12 February (Tuesday), MP Lee spoke in the Parliament and claimed that the food left out for cats by cat feeders is a root cause for rat infestations in the neighbourhood.
Here’s a part of the transcript:
I’d like to take this opportunity to highlight the problem that some cat feeders cause to our community. In Nee Soon south, Zone A, many residents complaining about sighting of big big rats, and I went down, at night to take a look.
True enough, I can see many rats dancing about, running about, and I activated AVA, NEA and town council. We formed a rats taskforce.
We found that the root cause is actually the food left behind by cat feeders. Several cat feeders, not just one, and when they walk away, the rats come and eat, the big cockcroaches come and eat. And I asked NEA to act.
They say cannot, there was an agreement by AVA and Cat (Welfare) Society, to leave food there for 2 hours. So many cat feeders, with many 2 hours, how to solve the rats issue?
After her post was up, netizens criticised her on her stand to disallow cat feeders to leave food unattended for two hours.
Despite being slammed by netizens, MP Lee posted another post and maintained her stance by criticising irresponsible cat feeders.
She wrote, “I also spoke about irresponsible cat feeding. I was calling for action to deal with irresponsible feeders who leave food unattended for two hours in rat infested areas. By leaving food unattended for too long, irresponsible feeders create hygiene problems for residents as big rats and cockroaches feed on them. I am glad that the Government agreed to look into this issue. Otherwise, we would never be able to solve the persistent problem with rats in HDB estates. And residents will suffer.”
As expected, this agitated netizens even more and they slammed MP Lee even harder and explained that it was not cat feeders’ fault that there’s an influx in rats.
