April 01, 2017, 01:37 PM 
It seems that the practice by government agencies to include an "unlimited changes" requirement for creative service providers working on government projects has not gone away, despite last year's controversy.
To refresh your memory, a Facebook post by Kelley Cheng went viral last year for pointing out that some procurement documents for government projects listed on the Government Electronic Business (GeBIZ) portal required designers to make "unlimited changes" in the projects, which amounts somewhat to a modern form of slavery.
Needless to say, Cheng's post attracted the ire of many of those creative types in Singapore, and saw the Ministry of Finance (MOF) stating that the "unlimited changes" is unfair after it investigated the matter.
That should have been the end of the matter, with government agencies falling in line with MOF's direction.
Unfortunately not, it seems.
The Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) published an Invitation-to-Quote (ITQ) to vendors and suppliers on Mar. 27 via the GeBIZ portal for the "DESIGN, PRODUCTION AND PRINTING OF MAGAZINE".
Source: Gebiz
The project is a call to vendors/suppliers to design, produce and print Mindef's Career Transition (CT) Magazine that serves SAF servicemen by raising awareness of the career transition (CT) provisions available to support SAF servicemen who wish to transition to a second career.
Under the ITQ documents' ANNEX B that covers the scope of work required in the project, the following paragraph was reflected:
Source: ITQ document
That's right, it says: "There shall not be any limit on the number of reworks required before approval of the finished artwork".
Unlimited changes to "the number of reworks required"?
Guess everyone is trying to save costs during the economic downturn.
Top image from DSTA Facebook and GeBIZ.
Read more about what happened last year:
GeBIZ Invitation-to-Quote/ Tender doc: This is why modern slavery exists in S’pore
Ministry of Finance: “Unlimited changes” clause is unfair; local school was behind tender
Here’s why condoning an ‘unlimited changes’ culture is poisonous for any industry
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