The YOG Budget

After the mega event that is the World Cup, the Singapore government will now turn it’s attention to the inaugural Youth Olympic Games (YOG). Most people will not know this but Singapore will be the host and the Singapore government is all excited about it.

Notice I said “the Singapore government” and not “the Singapore people”. I did this because most Singaporeans couldn’t care less about the YOG! Even through it is only about a month before the YOG, most Singaporeans do not know what events would be held, where the events will be held, or even which countries will show up! For an event called Olympic Games, there seems to be a lot of countries who will NOT be coming for the event.

Not that it matter to Singaporeans as most of us, including me, just don’t care! What I do care about however is the cost of holding the YOG. When Singapore first bid for the YOG, the budget for the games was $104million. Now it is found that the budget is insufficient, and the government has up it to $387million.

I like to know why the budget has gone up by more than 3 times! Singapore is not building any new stadium or sport facilities, so why did the budget got overshot by so much?

Ironically, the lack of attention paid to the YOG has helped the government as most Singaporeans do not know of the overshot budget, but questions still need to be asked and answers still need to be given. Just what was the extra $280million spent on?