Passing of the Malaysian "Toilet King"

Me only heard of his name a few days ago when news of his passing came out in the papers. There has been a lot of changes in the Malaysian political scene lately and him being a deputy minister would have to be contented with less public attention - hence not many, including meself, would have been familiar with his name.

However, the thing that grabbed me attention about his passing was his so called reputation as the "Toilet King". Apparently, unknown to most of us, this "Rags to Riches" man had been waging a relentless war against dirty public toilets in the country. Again, not many of us may have realized the fact that he spearheaded the "clean toilet revolution" in the country during his tenure as the Deputy Housing and Local Government Minister back in 2004. Along the way he also set up the first toilet association in Malaysia – Quality Restroom Association Malaysia (QRAM), in which he was its chairman from 2005 to last year!

Me cannot agree more when he said that “Public toilets are a gateway to a country and reflective of the country’s development and their people’s culture”.

The thing that made me want to make this entry was also to highlight the sorry state of the toilets found in most of our mosques in this country. Apart from many of the toilets not being kept clean, the accessories such as the water hose, hangers or locks were often found missing or faulty. Me once had the harrowing experience of rushing into a mosque's toilet and soon realized that there was no door to lock!

In stark contrast to most public toilets in this country, me still remember, during me Aussie days, there was even a toilet being used as a voting center as it was the most convenient and most cleaned place that the authority could find at that time.

No doubt we still have a long way to go in this respect, but never give up easily, all quarters should double up their efforts to educate the public especially our young ones on the importance of keeping things clean. These efforts should not only be left to the authority, it should also be the responsibility of us all.

We would not want the efforts started by the late "Toilet King" being wasted just like that, we should continue on his legacy to make our surrounding clean as we should all appreciate that cleanliness is a virtue that knows no boundaries....