The Auditor-General’s Office (AGO) flagged possible lapses in the Singapore Sports Council's processes on Jul. 17 in its financial year 2023/2024 (FY 2023/2024) report.

The AGO is an independent office that audits all of Singapore’s government entities’ accounts.

AGO said it had found lapses in revenue management and collections at the council, also known as SportSG, including inadequate controls over admissions to ActiveSG pools and gyms.

It found instances of misuse of ActiveSG members' passes, including people using passes of members who had passed away when the passes were not meant to be transferable.

Such lapses would result in revenue leakage for SportSG, AGO said.

In response to AGO's findings, SportSG said they have reviewed and tightened their processes to address the observations, including introducing digital safeguards.

People misused ActiveSG passes for entry

AGO flagged concerns about members sharing their passes for entry to ActiveSG pools and gyms with others, although such passes are strictly non-transferable.

While carrying out data analysis and test checks from Jul. 1, 2022, to Jun. 30, 2023, on the admissions record for ActiveSG pools and gyms, AGO found that 1,860 admissions to ActiveSG pools and gyms were made using passes belonging to 339 ActiveSG member accounts.

For 1,834 of the admissions, members had used their passes to enter an ActiveSG pool or gym while their accounts were concurrently being used for entry at the same or a different pool or gym.

For the remaining 26 admissions, the interval between the exit timing at a pool or gym at one sports centre and the entry timing at a pool or gym at another sports centre was unduly short for the pass to have been possibly used by the same member.

Such intervals lasted between three seconds to five minutes.

The AGO also pointed out that the actual number of cases of members abusing their non-transferable passes was likely to be higher when the possibility of passes being shared on different days was considered.

People used accounts of people that already passed away

The AGO also found that 18 deceased members’ accounts were used for 283 admissions to ActiveSG pools and gyms.

The late members had passed away for as long as 4.8 years before the dates of admission.

One of the 18 accounts had been used for 201 admissions.

Over 20,000 recorded admissions of ineligible members abusing free entry benefits meant for seniors aged 65 and above

AGO also noted that 22,618 admissions were made by members using ActiveSG special passes or per-entry passes purchased at discounted rates for which they were not eligible.

Such members were not eligible because they did not meet the age criterion or were not verified ActiveSG members.

The majority of these admissions, at 20,582, were made by 2,563 members who abused free admission benefits meant for seniors aged 65 and above.

SportSG introduced digital safeguards

In response to the AGO's findings, SportSG acknowledged that there could be tighter controls to prevent such abuse and added that it has made further enhancements to the ActiveSG membership system.

SportSG added that its new membership and booking platform, MyActiveSG+, which has been progressively rolled out since Jun. 15, 2024, will include safeguards such as dynamic QR codes, the use of sgID, and SingPass Data Synchronisation to prevent such instances.

SportSG has also put in place guides and checklists as an added control measure to ensure that its staff are clear on the processes where manual checks are required.

SportSG said it will also educate the public on the responsible use of the ActiveSG membership and conduct periodic checks to ensure compliance and detect unusual admission transactions.

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