Come Jun 28, the heartlands — from Jurong to Tampines — will be alight with 50 Aussie-style barbecues, as part of the Australian High Commission’s celebrations to mark Singapore’s Golden Jubilee, as well as 50 years of friendship between the two nations.
The barbecues will be held at 22 sites across the island, including Toa Payoh Central Community Club, Jem Shopping Mall, Block 516 Tampines Central 7, Punggol East Road and Haji Lane.
About 500 Australian volunteers will be firing up the grills to serve 10,000 beef and lamb steaks which weigh 1,000kg in total, about the weight of an average car.
The event will bring Australians and Singaporeans together “to share our mutual love of good food and a chat”, said Australian High Commissioner Philip Green in a statement announcing the barbecue locations.
The 50 BBQs event is the last of Australia’s 50 Bridges arts and community programme to celebrate SG50. Singaporeans can also take part in the 50 Bridges photo contest where they can submit up to 20 photos of either 50 Walls artworks or a 50 BBQs event, capturing the Australian-Singaporean relationship in a creative way.
They stand to win a pair of return business class tickets to Melbourne.
For more details about the competition and the list of sites for 50 BBQs, visit sg50oz.sg or the Australia In Singapore Facebook page.
List of sites involved in ’50 BBQs’:
1. Toa Payoh Central Community Club
2. Pavilion in front of Block 30 Telok Blangah Rise
3. Pek Kio Community Club
4. Tanglin Community Club
5. Viz Holland Condominium
6. Bishan Park
7. Serangoon Community Club
8. Block 516 Tampines Central 7
9. Rooftop garden at multistorey carpark of Block 890 Tampines Ave 1
10. Punggol Hardcourt at 50 Punggol East Rd (opp Riviera LRT)
11. Multipurpose Court next to Block 166 Yishun Ring Road
12. Bukit Timah Community Club
13. ACE The Place Community Club (Woodlands Ave 1)
14. Block 202 Bedok North Street 1
15. Kampong Park, Serangoon Ave 3
16. Jem Shopping Mall
17. Bukit Batok East Community Club
18. Block 106 Bukit Batok Central
19. Teck Whye Garden
20. Pavilion in front of Block 104C, Depot Road
21. James Cook University
22. Haji Lane
The PAP is sparing no expense to buy votes and win the next GE under the guise of celebrating S’pore’s jubilee year.
If S’poreans vote for them again because of this $500, it would be akin to taking the money and slapping themselves because this political model is just not sustainable.
The PAP’s hegemony built on political bullying and ruthless and methodical marginalization of political opposition and critics has both intimidated and alienated a significant segment of the population who would otherwise have joined politics and made valuable contributions to the growth of this country.
As one can see over the last 10 years, this is not healthy as S’pore reaches a plateau in terms of economic and social development based on a paradigm that revolves around boosting GDP by importing cheap labour and keeping a docile population attuned to and quietly and unquestioningly following the dictates of the ruling Party.
In fact, under Lee Hsien Loong the future looks bleak as he continues to draw on his military fraternity to fill up ministerial posts. How many of these ex-generals have impressed you or performed up to the standard one expects of anyone who draws more than a million dollar in salary?
Is this the kind of environment you want your children to grow up in?
Let’s think about it.
Carefully.
Is your children’s future worth only $500 which in effect represents a drop in the ocean considering the billions that this Government collects in the form of various taxes from ERP to COEs to Stamp Duties?
As scenes of overcrowding outside the Sports Hub yesterday evening for the closing ceremony of the SEA Games went viral, questions need to be asked on whether the Singapore SEA Games Organising Committee (SINGSOC) have done all it could to make it better, or did it instead compound the problem.
Agitated ticket holders queuing to enter the stadium to watch the closing ceremony might not have realised that the problem went beyond missing a show. The capacity crowd could have turned into a disaster if there was a fire or stampede on site.
There were reportedly thousands of such ticket holders who were sweating in the crowded confines. SINGSOC had since issued an apology and clarification, indicating that the crowd was due to an entry issue.
“As a significant proportion of the spectators were at the gates just before the start of the ceremony, there was a need to adjust entry gates and seating arrangements to enable them to be seated as quickly as possible. Consequently, some gates had to be closed for safety reasons.”
However, the problem might be due to there being too many tickets issued compared to the capacity for the Sports Hub, as some disappointed ticket holders have alleged.
TOC understands that SINGSOC was unhappy with the number of no-shows at the opening ceremony, as many seats were clearly visible on national television. In order to avoid a repeat of the incident, SINGSOC supposedly decided to over-sell the tickets for the closing ceremony.
Over-selling tickets is not something alien to event companies. It is a pretty common practice to over-issue tickets by about 5% in the form of complimentary tickets, in order to pack venues.
But the question becomes one of exactly how much SINGSOC over-issued, if it did indeed do so.
From pictures and eyewitness accounts, a conservative estimate of the number of people waiting outside the stadium would hover between 10,000 and 15,000.
Image from an attendee stuck outside the stadium during the SEA Games closing ceremony.
The Sports Hub has a maximum capacity of 55,000, and factoring in seats that need to be allocated for display and participants, it would likely be configured to hold about 40,000 seated ticket holders for the closing ceremony.
In other words, if SINGSOC did indeed over-issue tickets, they did it at 25% to 35% more seats than the stadium can hold in full capacity, a far cry from the 5% standard.
Would the Sports Hub had been able to absorb such excess capacity? As a video by Channel NewsAsiashows, there does not seem to be extra room for the thousands who were stuck outside the gate, but who would technically have an empty seat in the stadium.
Images from various online sources also indicate that there was very little spare capacity inside the stadium to match the crowds waiting outside, although there were a few empty block visible.
Capacity crowd for the SEA Games closing ceremony.
Who has the legit ticket?
The overissuing of tickets were mainly in two forms – complimentary tickets for Sponsors and free entry for SEA Games Volunteers. The former might include entities like GP Battery and NTUC, while that the latter could access the Sports Hub by flashing their accreditation passes (a pass given to all volunteers), TOC was told.
Paying patrons mostly bought their tickets before the start of the SEA Games itself, as the seats were sold out quickly.
The problem arising from yesterday evening also give reason the question how paying patrons are guaranteed their seats. It is understood that those who bought tickets had designated seats by blocks. However, comments online suggests that such designated seats were not reserved fro them as they rightly expected it to be.
Who were occupying the seats of paying fans? Was it complimentary ticket holders from sponsors and partners, volunteers, or was there excess capacity sold?
Disregard for safety, poor decisions on capacity
The crowd waiting outside the stadium was clearly agitated from the humidity and the crowd, from social media postings. There were also accounts of a lot of pushing and shoving going on in the crowd and many like the elderly, the disabled and the young were helplessly caught in the scrum.
It was also reported that those who managed to get in ended up sitting on the stairway to watch the show. In the event of an emergency, a stampede could have led to serious injuries and death, not only within the stadium, but among the crowds stuck outside.
Pertinent questions to ask might include whether SINGSOC has consulted Sports Hub management about the ability of the new stadium to accommodate such an expanded capacity. TOC understands that such consultations did not take place.
An expert in event management TOC spoke to shared that any decision to over-cater for event seats need to take into account the realities of the ground, and an inability to do so reflects lack of competency.
“When managing such long haul multi sports events, it is important to feel the pulse on the ground so that organisers are aware of public sentiment towards the games. This will help in understanding whether the public are interested/or will attend events. SINGSOC should have realized that public participation for the games was high, and hence the likelihood of attendance at the closing ceremony was likely to be high.”
About SINGSOC
SINGSOC is the steering committee for the 28th SEA Games. It’s a team of 20 headed by Minister Lawrence Wong.
In addition to Minister Lawrence Wong, SINGSOC also features 2 other Ministers – Mr Masagos Zulfiki and Mr Teo Ser Luck and 2 Senior Ministers of State – Ms Indranee Rajah and Ms Josephine Teo.
In its post-event statement, SINGSOC offered a full refund but as evident from the comments, many are still unsatisfied. Questions also remain about how SIGSOC would be able to identify legitimate tickets in order to effect such a refund.
There was also no clarity so far about how it was possible for thousands to be stuck outside the stadium, beyond the explanation of a congestion at the gate.
TOC has sent a number of queries to SINGSOC to seek clarifications on whether tickets were over-issued and how the capacity for the closing ceremony was managed. At time of publishing, SINGSOC has not responded.
All civil servants will be given a special one-off SG50 payment of $500 in recognition of their contribution towards nation building, the Public Service Division (PSD) said in a statement today (June 17).
The Government has also decided to pay a mid-year Annual Variable Component (AVC) of 0.5 month in view of the economic climate.
The PSD, which falls under the Prime Minister’s Office, also said that all Division IV civil servants will be given a built-in wage increase of $30 to their monthly salaries.
“This [increment] will be in addition to their annual increment in 2015, and signals the Government’s continued commitment to help raise the salaries of low-wage civil servants,” the statement added.
Around 2,500 Division IV civil servants will benefit from the wage increase. While $30 is less than NWC’s recommendation of $60 for those earning less than $1,100, all Division IV civil servants already earn more than $1,100, PSD said.
The mid-year AVC, special one-off SG50 payment, and built-in wage increase for Division IV civil servants were decided in close consultation with the public sector unions and will be paid in July 2015.
Explaining the mid-year AVC of 0.5 month, PSD said: “The Singapore economy grew by 2.6 per cent on a year-on-year basis in the first quarter of 2015, faster than the 2.1 per cent growth in the preceding quarter. Global economic growth in 2015 is expected to come in marginally better than in 2014, but the pace of growth is likely to be uneven across economies.
“Given the expected improvement in global economic conditions in 2015, externally-oriented sectors are likely to see improved growth prospects. However, sector-specific factors could weigh on the growth of some sectors.
“Taking these factors into account, the Ministry of Trade and Industry forecasts a GDP growth of 2 per cent to 4 per cent for 2015, barring the materialisation of downside risks.”
The Philippines demanded SEA Games organisers carry out a gender test on an Indonesian women’s volleyball player on Tuesday, risking a storm of controversy.
Philippines coach Roger Gorayeb singled out Indonesia’s Aprilia Santini Manganang because of her appearance and powerful physique, Filipino website inquirer.net said.
The Philippines’ delegation spokeswoman confirmed the request, but said she didn’t expect any test to be carried out before the game in Singapore on Wednesday.
“After we filed it’s going to be the competition manager who will reply directly to the volleyball federation or to volleyball officials here,” she told AFP.
Gender testing is highly controversial, both because of the psychological effects on the athlete and because the science of the process is murky and complex.
Competition officials and coach Gorayeb were not immediately available for comment. Reports said Manganang, 23, is expected to play Wednesday’s Pool B opener.
“She’s very powerful, it’s like putting a male in the female division,” Gorayeb said, according to Inquirer.net.
“Whether she plays or not, it doesn’t matter because we will be playing our best here,” he added.
While it is unknown whether authorities will grant the Philippines’ request, previous gender cases have dragged on over long periods, to the detriment of the athlete involved.
South African runner Caster Semenya, the former 800m world champion, underwent a series of humiliating tests before finally being cleared to compete.
And Indian sprinter Dutee Chand is currently fighting her ban by Indian authorities after a gender test showed up elevated levels of testosterone.
“It’s so cruel. God has made me the way I am. I don’t want to change anything and I also don’t want to give up sports,” Chand, 19, told AFP last year.
