A Perspective on YOG

We live in a globalized world where often the model of competition and cooperation is seen between cities rather than countries. Thus, when the Singapore government examine the competitiveness and the vibrancy of the country, they often benchmark it against other highly globalized cities like New York, London, Sydney, HongKong, Shanghai etc. The policies and implementation that flow out of these considerations to enhance and sustain our position often hinges around close scrutiny of these competitive benchmarks. Of these policies, none is more obvious and accepted within the government then the notion that we need to continuously reposition Singapore on the worldmap through a sustain promotion of a series of high fanfare and often high cost events eg YOG, F1 etc.

Beijing successful bid and hosting of the Summer 2008 Olympics must have been a sublime trigger for us to bid for the 2010 YOG, albeit at a lesser scale.

While there are concrete and solid premises for doing so and we must continue to do so whenever we find an opportunity worth the while, we must always be mindful that we are spending the country hard-earned resources on such endeavours. The values of our founding forefather like Dr Goh Keng Swee who espoused a strict sense of frugality and governance in public spending remain essential ethos that we must hold dear in our hearts in spite of the changing global environment. A case in point is the spendthrift Americans are returning to a new sense of austerity after decades of over indulgence and consumption, abruptly terminated by the implosion of the Great Recession.

A case in point is the recent YOG event which we can performed an impassioned analysis on the cost and benefit analysis. We spent about $387M on the event not including the time and resources of thousands of volunteers roped in from various organizations and schools to assist in the event execution. If you calculate the actual total cost to the host country, I will not be surprised that it will hit the half billion mark easily. What are the returns?

An estimate of less than $10M from sales receipts is achieved through the 13-day event including entrance tickets and souvenir sales.There is little or no widespread international public media interest in the event even in neighbouring Asean countries. It was ultimately an event marked by a lack of buzz and low level of participation by major sporting nations. The poor level of participation in the games is probably well summed up in the six teams contesting for the soccer championship including Zimbabwe, Cuba, Bolivia, Vanuatu and Montenegro and Singapore. Seats for the games are sold en-masse to MOE and subsequently marked by poor turnout in most events with a few exceptions. The list goes on.

To be objective, the machinery were put in place to execute a successful games but there just does not have the sufficient and necessary key ingredients to make it so. Some are probably due to factors beyond our control. YOG is a first time event, so there are neither the deep historical roots nor strengths that can be marshalled to ensure that it will command the publicity and interest like a Summer Olympics or World Cup. In this stance, the level of interest at the international level has fallen deeply on the wrong side of the pendulum.

While YOG is definitely not the success as touted by the media, there is no need to dwell on it like a sore thumb. In fact, we should learned from our mistakes and employ a more hard-nosed attitude when looking at hosting some of these “mega events” to promote Singapore as a global city. MCYS should shoulder a fair share if the blame for this pitiable end outcome being the key ministry involved in the clinching, planning and execution of the event.

We must always remember that it took Mr Lee Kuan Yew, then PM two years to convince Dr Goh to finance the National Stadium. He was concerned that the Stadium will be under-utilized and the $1 million spent building it wasted. It is opportune at this juncture, to reinvigorate the values of founding father to guide and formulate policies and decisions for our nation moving forward.

Against the current global backdrop, austerity is the new buzzword. Governments in many developed countries are heavily burden with high level of public debt. YOG was bid in the midst of  a worldwide bubble. In Singapore, we must not assume that we will be immuned to the chain of high public debt with our aging population. Let conserve and spent our resources wisely. Throwing half a billion on a YOG weakly endorsed by the international arena is definitely not one of the ways to make our standing better.

It is beneficial to consider in the future that if the nation is to invest on a high profile event costing more than $100 million for example and the tangible benefits cannot be quantify to recover more than 50% of cost, a public discourse should be carried rather than going ahead based on some vague argument of intangible benefits. If a high ranking official intends to overwrite the public opinion in such an instance, his performance should also be on the record. In this way, we encourage transparency, and risk-taking in public service will be rewarded or penalized accordingly depending on the eventual outcome.

This article is written as I feel that we as a nation have received the short end of the stick in organizing the YOG on behalf of the IOC.