During the July 2022 sitting of Parliament, I asked the Minister for Culture, Community and Youth how SportSG will use the takeover of the Singapore Sports Hub as an opportunity to develop sports excellence at the junior level, notwithstanding the comparatively low commercial value of junior sports, so as to grow a broader pipeline of future high performance athletes and sports champions.
In today’s sitting (1 Aug 2022), Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Edwin Tong responded to this and other questions during his Ministerial Statement on “Unlocking the Sports Hub’s Full Potential for Singapore”.
Following his statement, I asked three supplementary questions:
Could the Government not have tapped on international private sector experience using the procurement model?
How will SportSG bring in more marquee events when SHPL, with all its international expertise, could not?
Will the Sports Hub and Kallang Alive precinct be used to host all National Sports Competitions and National Schools’ Games and can SportSG make greater efforts to market such events to a wider public audience? This will inspire our young athletes to push themselves harder, increase the public attendance at such competitions, and also free up other community sports facilities for the general public to use. As the Minister would be aware, these facilities tend to be block booked by National Sports Associations for competitions and training, to the consternation of some members of the public.
The Minister’s responses to these questions will be published in the Parliament Hansard in about two weeks’ time.
