THE Iskandar Puteri Municipal Council (MBIP) launched a programme to control the rat population in the Johor city.
Under the initiative to banish crows and rats, MBIP will pay the public RM1 for every house mouse caught.
Far from being an effective solution, this will only make matters worse.
New Delhi had a problem with venomous snakes. Its city council offered a cash reward to people to catch cobras.
The city discovered that people were breeding cobras for the cash reward, so it stopped the programme.
Breeders released the cobras, and thus the problem became worse.
This is documented in economics and public policy textbooks, and is known as the Cobra Effect.
Records show that Hanoi, Vietnam, had a similar programme like MBIP.
Enterprising citizens began rearing rats for the bounty. Soon, the city’s rat infestation worsened.
It only takes a small number of irresponsible people to worsen the infestation of rats.
This is because rats have a short gestation period of 20 days, can give birth to a litter of 14 pups, and can have 10 litters each year.
The life span of a house mouse is two years, and it can copulate as early as five weeks old.
Therefore, just a small number of people can cause the population of rats to grow exponentially in a short time.
Reversing the rat infestation will take years.
Iskandar Puteri is an important city in the Iskandar Development Region.
It is Johor’s state administrative capital and home to the ambitious EduCity project, where British universities and international schools are located.
Legoland Malaysia and Puteri Harbour are housed there.
What kind of image will Iskandar Puteri project if it becomes a rat-infested city?
A philosopher once wrote: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Modern history of city administration has shown us that paying the public to reduce the population of pests is not only ineffective, but it will also make things worse.
MBIP must stop its plan to pay residents to catch rats.
WONG YAO HING
Iskandar Puteri, Johor