The Ministry of Communications, Youth and Sports (MCYS) has apologised again for its latest blunder.
This time, due to an administrative flop, at least 30 Youth Olympic Games (YOG) volunteers who were entitled to free race tickets to the recently ended Singapore Grand Prix only received them on Monday — one day after the race.
According to The Straits Times, the volunteers said that they registered for the complimentary F1 tickets at “thank you” parties held at Universal Studios Singapore earlier this month.
In a statement, MCYS said 400 free race tickets issued for each of the race nights – Friday, Saturday and Sunday – to thank volunteers for their contribution to the YOG.
The complimentary tickets, which cost $298 each, were for seats at the grandstand of the Marina Bay floating platform.
MCYS has since apologised for the late delivery of tickets.
“We would like to convey our sincere apologies to the volunteers who did not receive the tickets on time,” it said in a statement.
“Our staff made a major mistake in not making sure that there would be sufficient time for the tickets to reach those who have been selected to receive these tickets,” it said.
MCYS said the tickets were posted in batches via mail from last Tuesday and that the last batch was sent to the post office last Wednesday.
However, some volunteers who received their tickets on Monday said the postmark on the envelopes was stamped as last Friday.
Since May this year, Singapore Post stopped collecting and delivering mail on Saturdays which means that that items posted on a Friday could only be delivered the next working day, which is Monday.
Although MCYS did not reveal the exact number of volunteers affected by the incident, close to S$9,000 worth of F1 race tickets (30xS$298) was wasted because the tickets were stuck in the mail.
The issue was first raised on citizen journalism site, STOMP, when volunteers failed to receive their allotted tickets on time.
One of them, Mr Benson Guek, 40, who volunteered at the games as a photo assistant told The Straits Times, “It’s such a waste that the ticket arrangement was not handled properly.”
“I don’t want to blame anyone but it’s a joke to receive the tickets after the race is over,” he added.
Mr Yang Rui, 25, a teaching assistant at the National University of Singapore (NUS) spoke of how he had checked his letter box every day, expecting to receive the free F1 ticket.
He told The New Paper, “I never expected to be given a free ticket to the F1 race. But when it is promised to us and not delivered, it’s really disappointing.”
The incident is the latest in a string of gaffes by MCYS over the management of YOG volunteers.
Just last week, up to 45,000 YOG ”thank you” certificates which bore sample instead of original signatures by International Olympic Commitee president Jacques Rogge and other key officials were handed out to officials, athletes and volunteers.
The committee said the certificates would be reprinted and redistributed to those affected.
The New Paper also reported that last Tuesday, a complimentary trip to the Universal Studios theme park for 150 students from Queenstown Secondary School turned sour when they were turned away at the door.
The free trip was organised by the Singapore Youth Olympic Games Organising Committee’s (SYOGOC) to thank the students for helping out as volunteers in the games.
After the group arrived at the theme park at 11.30am, they were turned away and told to return in the evening.
That’s because a misprint in an email from SYOGOC said they could visit the theme park from “0630 to 2300″ when the email sender actually meant “1830″ instead of “0630″.
