Free Shuttle Bus in Marine Parade, MacPherson and Mountbatten
7 August 2024
Ms Hazel Poa asked the Minister for Culture, Community and Youth (a) where does the funding for the free shuttle bus service in Marine Parade GRC, MacPherson SMC and Mountbatten SMC come from; (b) what is the cost for funding such service for a year; (c) what is the justification for limiting the service to only residents of those constituencies; and (d) whether such funding can be also made available to other constituencies, and, if so, how.
Ms Hazel Poa asked the Minister for Culture, Community and Youth (a) whether the public bus services in Marine Parade GRC, MacPherson SMC and Mountbatten SMC are adequate to meet the residents’ needs; and (b) whether the free shuttle bus service which began on 8 July 2024 for these constituencies have met the financial prudence criteria for provision of public transport.
Mr Leong Mun Wai asked the Minister for Culture, Community and Youth (a) whether the Ministry can provide resources to Community Development Councils to launch free shuttle bus services to other areas such as Tengah New Town and Bukit Batok West Extension; and (b) what are the considerations for doing and for not doing so.
The Minister of State for Culture, Community and Youth (Mr Alvin Tan) (for the Minister for Culture, Community and Youth): Mr Deputy Speaker, can I have your permission to take Question Nos 12 to 17 on today’s Order Paper together, please?
Mr Deputy Speaker: Please do.
Mr Alvin Tan: Sir, Community Development Councils, or CDCs, were established to foster community bonds and strengthen social cohesion. They develop and implement new initiatives for their districts, to foster a more inclusive community, taking into account residents’ profiles and the needs of their respective districts.
CDCs rally the community to donate to community causes. They also provide matching grants to support ground-up community projects that meet the priority needs of the community. The Grassroots Advisers of Marine Parade Group Representation Constituency (GRC), MacPherson Single Member Constituency (SMC) and Mountbatten SMC, collectively the Marine Parade Town Cluster, proposed a shuttle bus service that could complement the existing public transport service, to better connect residents to key nodes within the Marine Parade Town Cluster.
Several factors were considered. These divisions have a high proportion of residents who are seniors. Seniors have given feedback that as they age and get more frail, it is more physically challenging to walk to the various transport, healthcare and community nodes. A significant part of Marine Parade Town Cluster also comprises older estates with narrow roads, which are difficult to be served by large public buses.
Sir, such community-based shuttle bus services are not new. In the past, a few Grassroots Advisers too have raised funds to organise such services in their respective divisions.
In the case of Marine Parade, they have decided to do it as a Town Cluster and for the shuttle bus to ply designated routes, with a limited number of designated stops, such as at polyclinics, neighbourhood centres and Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) stations.
The shuttle bus operates in non-peak hours from 10.00 am to 4.00 pm on weekdays, excluding public holidays. The route is designed to help residents, especially frail and older residents, get to amenities more easily, encourage them to continue leading active lifestyles and remain connected to the community.
The shuttle bus pilot costs approximately $1 million to operate annually. It covers a total of seven shuttle bus routes, operated by seven buses. This works out to approximately $150,000 per division, for each route.
The South East CDC supported this pilot with a one-off seed grant of $200,000. This amount came from matching grants that the Government provides to every CDC. Essentially, the Government matches donations raised by the CDCs with grants, which the CDCs can then use to support ground-up initiatives that foster a cohesive and inclusive community. The rest of the amount – in fact, the bulk and majority of the amount – was raised from donations by the South East CDC, as well as by the respective Marine Parade Town Cluster Grassroots Organisations. So, the South East CDC funding through the one-off seed grant comes up to about $2,400 per division per month.
Sir, the pilot has just started and it is still too early to make an assessment on the effectiveness of the service. To date, over 10,000 have registered for the shuttle, of which over 40% are seniors aged 65 years and above, and around 1,000 residents have taken the shuttle service every week over the past three weeks.
Beyond utilisation, the critical factor is the financial sustainability of the service. The CDC grant was provided on a one-off basis. So, Marine Parade Town Cluster Grassroots Organisations will have to eventually raise funds to cover the entire cost of operations or to refine its financing model for greater sustainability.
Operating an efficient and successful shuttle service at this scale is not straightforward. Many previous attempts at trying out local shuttle services have been discontinued because of low utilisation or financial challenges. Hence, there are still many aspects of the service to validate and to refine through this pilot. The other CDCs will study the experiences and findings from the pilot first, before considering starting similar initiatives.
Sir, today, the Ministry of Transport (MOT) and Land Transport Authority (LTA) plan for public transport services, taking into consideration commuter demand, connectivity to key transport nodes and amenities, and financial sustainability. This does not preclude localised efforts – for example, private shuttles by condominiums or people sector transportation for seniors – to address very specific needs. LTA was consulted to ensure that the shuttle bus services would not adversely affect public bus operations when using bus stops. This is similar to what LTA would do for other privately-operated shuttle services.
Ms Hazel Poa (Non-Constituency Member): I have two supplementary questions.
Firstly, Minister of State Tan has not replied to part (c) of my question, which is why is the shuttle bus service limited to only residents of those constituencies?
Secondly, like what the Leader of the Opposition has mentioned, I have filed a question, which is Question No 13, but directed at the MOT and somehow it was redirected to MCCY. I would like a clarification on why this question was redirected because the question is actually under the purview of MOT.
Mr Alvin Tan: Sir, I mentioned that this is a ground-up initiative, largely private donor-funded. If Singaporeans visit, for example, the Singapore Government Partnerships Office (SGPO) portal, they can approach the CDCs and in fact they have done so to come up with local community projects. This is one local community project and that is where CDC funding comes in as a seed fund. As I said, it is one-off. It is a pilot to see whether there is use, potentially. They will assess it after one year to see whether it is useful to do it elsewhere.
But I wish to caveat, and I had mentioned in my reply, that it is not very straightforward, that these are subject to utilisation rates, these are also subject to financial sustainability.
So, it is unique to a particular division. If Singaporeans have an idea that they want to moot to, for example, the SGPO or the CDC, they can submit their proposal and the CDC will look into it. This is quite similar because it meets the specific local priority need. The CDC looked at it, they provided some seed funding, but the majority of it is funded by donors to the Marine Parade Town Cluster. I think that helps to answer the question.
Costs for Hosting 2025 World Aquatics Championships
7 August 2024
Ms Hazel Poa asked the Minister for Culture, Community and Youth (a) what is the current estimated cost of hosting the 2025 World Aquatics Championships; (b) what was the original budgeted cost in February 2023 when Singapore replaced Kazan, Russia as the host; and (c) what portion of the costs will be met by (i) the Government (ii) private sponsors and (iii) other sources, respectively.
Mr Edwin Tong Chun Fai: This response to Ms Hazel Poa and Ms Joan Pereira will also address a related Parliamentary Question filed by Mr Zhulkarnain Abdul Rahim for a subsequent Sitting.
As part of our strategy to bring world-class sporting events to Singapore, we aim to attract events that will bring economic, social and sporting benefits to Singapore and Singaporeans.
These events draw in overseas spectators and boost tourism spending. Local entities will be involved in the organisation of these events which will create job opportunities for Singaporeans and build deeper capabilities for future events.
Singaporeans can spectate the main events and watch our Team Singapore athletes have an opportunity to compete against world-level athletes. At the same time, Singaporeans can also look forward to participating in a variety of community activities organised at the sidelines of the main event. These will garner interest for the sport and inspire our next generation of sporting talents.
Our athletes can also gain valuable experience and be inspired from competing against the best athletes in the world. Such opportunities, for example, obtaining wild card entries, would not have been available if these competitions had not taken place in Singapore.
When the opportunity to host the World Aquatics Championships 2025 arose, Singapore decided to pursue it. This is the highest tier of world championships in aquatics, and will attract the best in the world to compete in Singapore. As the host, our aim is to deliver a positive event experience for athletes and spectators, while being fiscally prudent and cost-effective. To this end, we have undertaken detailed planning and implemented stringent budget measures, taking reference from the learnings of previous hosts of the Championships as well as Singapore’s experience in hosting other large-scale sporting events.
Over the past year, we have been working closely with World Aquatics (AQUA) to understand and agree on the operational and technical requirements for a competition of this scale and to draw up the budget required to host the event. The estimated budget is sufficient to allow us to meet AQUA’s requirements and is also comparable to previous editions of the World Aquatics Championships.
With less than a year away to the Championships, the organising committee has commenced efforts to secure sponsorships and negotiate service contracts for the event. As these are presently ongoing, due to commercial sensitivities of these efforts, we are unable to disclose the budget at this point. The costs to be borne by the Government and sponsorships will only be finalised after the event has concluded.
The competition venues, including temporary ones which will be constructed, will meet international standards. The temporary competition venue will house a competition pool, a warm-up pool, ample spectator seats and dedicated areas for community events. Hosting swimming and artistic swimming events in temporary competition venues is comparable with other major games and previous editions of World Aquatics Championships in Hungary, Japan and Qatar, where the respective local organising committees had built up to six temporary pools for each of the Championships they hosted. The purpose-built venue will be designed according to competition standards prescribed by AQUA, as well as provide sufficient ancillary facilities that will allow spectators to have a positive experience. This includes provisions for sheltered seating and accessibility to community activities which will be co-located within the Kallang Alive precinct.
To maximise the usage of these pools, we have made plans to use them for the World Aquatics Masters Championships that would be held from 26 July to 22 August in the same year. We are also exploring the feasibility of extending the use of the competition venue before and beyond these Championships.
Grassroots Leaders
4 October 2023
Ms Hazel Poa asked the Minister for Culture, Community and Youth (a) whether grassroots leaders are required to declare their political affiliations, if any, prior to their appointments; and (b) whether the People’s Association considers the political affiliations of individuals when appointing grassroots leaders.
Mr Edwin Tong Chun Fai: Grassroots leaders are not required to declare their political affiliations to the People’s Association.
20 October 2022
Ms Hazel Poa asked the Minister for Culture, Community and Youth whether the Ministry has data on the number of grassroots leaders who own or manage companies involved in (i) Town Council contracts, (ii) other Government contracts and (iii) operation of coffee shops respectively and, if so, what is the data.
Mr Edwin Tong Chun Fai: We do not, as a matter of course, collect such data.
Annual Fee Paid to Sports Hub Pte Ltd
13 September 2022
Ms Hazel Poa asked the Minister for Culture, Community and Youth with regard to the $193.7 million annual fee paid to Sports Hub Pte Ltd (a) whether the annual fee includes other costs apart from operations, maintenance, lifecycle and debt servicing costs; (b) what is the breakdown of these different costs from the annual fee paid; and (c) whether there are contractual clauses in the Project Agreement that allow the Government to discontinue payment of the entire annual fee in the event of non-performance by SHPL.
Mr Edwin Tong Chun Fai: About 65% of the annual fee of $193.7 million goes towards SHPL’s debt service repayments for the loan they took out to finance the Sports Hub construction. The remaining amount goes towards the day-to-day maintenance and operations, as well as lifecycle costs of the assets.
These payments are subject to SHPL’s achievement of a broad and comprehensive range of Key Performance Indicators (KPI) stipulated within the Project Agreement. These include the availability of Sports Hub facilities and performance of services, such as events and activity programming, as well as cleanliness, estate management, security and quality of customer care. Deductions to the annual payments can be made if the KPIs are not met.