‘Don’t call him a sanitation engineer’ — Shaik Nifael is proud to be a longkang cleaner

SINGAPORE: Anyone taking to Shaik Nifael would recognise him as a force of nature. A few minutes into a conversation with the man behind Jetters Incz, the drainage and waste management company Shaik founded a decade ago, and you’ll recognise that what you see is what you get: a hardworking man who refuses to dress up what he and the people who work for him do, but instead fights for the dignity that invisible workers deserve.

And in a society that gives importance to where you went to university and how far you get up the corporate ladder, Shaik’s honest approach to life is refreshing indeed.

“We need to rethink the value of the work we can’t live without,” he told The Independent Singapore in an interview last week.

Shaik wears a number of hats: business owner, husband, and father (who now takes care of his own father), as well as the sponsor and mentor for Bishan Barx FC, which won the 2025 Singapore Football League 2 (SFL2) title and ended up getting promoted to Division 1.

He was also a school dropout, which led him to become a longkang cleaner earning S$24 a day, and while parents often hold the threat of becoming a rubbish collector or a longkang cleaner over their kids’ heads if they don’t study, Shaik made it work in his favor; now, it’s working for the good of everyone else who works with him at Jetters Incz, which was recognised nationally this year, getting named one of the Companies of Good by the National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre.

Not that the journey was easy. The man certainly paid his dues, at times sleeping just a few hours, sometimes even in the work site next to grease traps, working offshore, just so he could learn as much about the business as possible in the shortest amount of time.

Along the way, the older longkang cleaners earned his respect, as their experiences gave them the expertise “to solve problems better than a civil engineer could.”

Along the way as well, Shaik did go back to his studies, and where he once failed at Maths, he found himself acing his accounting classes, because they made more sense to him than Algebra ever did.

He’s also taken risks, including financial ones that saw his electricity and phone get cut off, but today, he can smile when he looks back at the past.

“Life knocked me down so many times,” Shaik said, laughing.

He’s also profoundly grateful to his “guardian angel,” an investor who believed in him and continues to believe in him to this day, as well as to clients who have been around since he started.

And don’t even think that Shaik is done with dreaming. At the moment, he is pushing for something that will have an even bigger impact on society: an inclusive chamber of commerce that cuts across race and class.

With these types of groups often divided according to ethnicity, Shaik believes that “the real dividing line is between those who are seen and those who aren’t.

This isn’t only about wages. It’s about dignity, respect, and the possibility of progression.”

Having come this far, it’s hard to think of anything that would stop Shaik Nifael. /TISG

Read also: In profile: Miki Hay on motherhood, business, and why women can have it all