Tuesday, July 6, 2010 — It will cost Singapore $387 million to host the upcoming Youth Olympic Games, three times the original estimate of $122 million.
The Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) said that money was spent to upgrade existing venues to allow international broadcasting. Also, the number of volunteers have gone from the 7,000 to 20,000.
Local companies were awarded $260 million worth of contracts as a result of the YOG. The companies include CityNeon Holdings and Pico Global Service (both for events and exhibition services), Comfort-Delgro (transport), Singapore Food Industries, Select Group (catering), CISCO (auxiliary police), NCS (software system, data centres management) and Purechem Veolia (cleaning).
The government expects an estimated 40,000 foreign visitors and tourism receipts of about $57 million.
By contrast, the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games cost $3.9 billion to stage.
“The benefits will outweight the cost, we are quite sure of that. That’s why we decided to go for it,” said Mr Niam Chiang Meng, the MCYS Permanent Secretary. “This is the biggest thing that Singapore can ever host. You cannot host an Olympic Games. You cannot host a World Cup. This is it.
“If you want to host this, better host the first one, but hosting the first one, means you are the guinea pig. There is (sic) a lot of unknowns, uncertainties.
“The IFs (International Sports Federations) do (sic) not talk to us until after the Beijing Olympic Games. That’s more than nine months from the time that we won the bid. And we have two and a half years, unlike the six years that others get,” added Mr Niam.
Sources:
MCYS
Razor TV
todayonline.com
“The IFs (International Sports Federations) do (sic) not talk to us until after the Beijing Olympic Games”.
That’s submitting the bid with a blank cheque and making ourselves the first guinea pig.
You can bully a Little Red Dot, but not Moscow the 2nd bidder.
& Volunteers remains unpaid,
even though some of us started with SYOGOC since July