Singapore Sports Hub -- that place with the fancy roof and patchy turf -- wants to charge National Day Parade (NDP) organisers some S$26 million for an extra 35 days of rehearsals for our country's 51st celebrations next year, revealed The Straits Times on Dec. 11, 2015.

Henceforth, we are calling the venue the $ingapore $ports Hub.

According to ST, the S$26 million expenditure alone for the extra days will completely blow the entire regular S$17 to S$20 million NDP budget set aside each year completely out of the water.

This has resulted in the Ministry of Defence (Mindef) and $ingapore $ports Hub to still be in talks about using the 55,000-seater stadium in Kallang.

The latest word is that the cost has been lowered to S$10 million, with the Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen weighing in on the issue saying there will not be hiccups and dismissing media reports as "speculative".

Even then, at S$10 million, the figure comes up to about S$285,000 a day, which includes the cost of closing the car park, water sports centre and other things.

And the fact remains that the venue for National Day Parade 2016 is still not decided even though the concept and budget for the annual Aug. 9 parade would usually be finalised and approved by this month.

NDP takes three months to prepare

The current stalemate in negotiations is the result of a mismatch between private sector profiteering and serving the public's interests.

A typical NDP parade requires around three months of preparation work.

However, NDP organisers have been given only 45 days to use the venue free-of-charge under the new arrangement with the $ports Hub, which is a S$1.33 billion public-private partnership between government agency Sport Singapore (formerly the Singapore Sports Council) and Singapore Sports Hub, a consortium of companies that runs the 35ha facility.

Funny that its website stated that the $ingapore $ports Hub was built to deliver a sustainable, differentiated and competitive advantage for Singapore -- even though it has been estimated that the financial impact of hosting NDP 2016 would have on Sports Hub is at least S$19 million.

This stems from the use of several venues and sites at the Sports Hub including the 55,000-seater National Stadium, OCBC Arena, OCBC Aquatic Centre, Water Sports Centre, carpark, and community facilities for NDP.

Other national sports associations would also then have to look for replacement training venues and community events and public bookings of facilities could also be affected during the run-up to the NDP in August.

The Kallang Wave Mall will also be set to be adversely affected due to reduced footfall and decreased sales over four weekends, where it will be hit by road and carpark closures all around and will be unable to cash in on the Great Singapore Sale period.

$ingapore $ports Hub's new own goal - pricing itself out

Just last year, $ingapore $ports Hub was plagued by a series of embarrassing faux pas one after the other.

First, the infamous S$800,000 pitch had sand instead of grass, which refused to grow.

Then, the leaky roof which got Jay Chou's fans all wet and bothered.

And early this year, its head honchos #ownselfpraiseownself.

It has also become too expensive for the Merlion Cup, which is famous for bringing in foreign football teams for local tournaments.

And $ingapore $ports Hub has also priced out the Asia Masters Athletics Championships, asking for some S$620,000 for four days' rental -- double the event's entire budget.

Now you can add S$26 million to the ever-expanding list of own goals.

In a nutshell, the partnership saw the building of the S$1.33 billion facility funded by the $ports Hub, but in return, it gets to manage and run it for 25 years, while receiving an annual payment from the Government.

As ST Sports Editor Marc Lim pointed out ("NDP saga raises bigger questions", Dec. 15), this partnership reveals "much deeper" problems in how the project's public-private partnership (PPP) should be working out and managed.

While $ingapore $ports Hub has to place commercial interests as one of its main focus, it has to examine whether this is a situation where national interests outweigh commercial considerations.

Is $ingapore $ports Hub being atas? 

So the multi-million question is: Is S$10 million for 35 extra days of rehearsals a fair price for Singapore?

To be fair, the period for NDP rehearsals clashes with the football off-season, when European teams travel to the East for a quick buck.

The Sunday Times mused aloud whether the high rental costs are the reason for the National Stadium's threadbare 2016 schedule, with only three events confirmed.

When we checked $ports Hub schedule from January 2016 - December 2016, this is what we found:

It was also reported that at least two suite owners at the $ingapore $ports Hub -- either corporations and/ or individuals who paid between $70,000 and $180,000 annually and are entitled to tickets to all sports events at the National Stadium and to two non-sports events at the same venue per year -- are seeking legal action.

And since the venue is obviously not booked for any events after April 2016, we say, "Forget the Kallang homecoming".

Forget the emotional return to the Grand Old Dame. Forget that it's been 10 years since NDP was held in the National Stadium.

If money talks, Singaporeans would rather walk.

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