Tote Board's $400-million Donation to Gardens by the Bay

Mdm Speaker, under its Act, the Tote Board's funds can be donated in support of public, social or charitable purposes and the promotion of culture, art and sport in Singapore. Hence, while supporting the needy and social services is at the core of its funding activities, the Tote Board also supports projects that bring vibrancy into our community spaces to benefit all Singaporeans. These include Gardens by the Bay, as well as other community and arts-related projects.

In 2008, the Board made a donation to support the development cost of Gardens by the Bay. The donation does not cover the costs of operating the conservatories. The conservatories make full recovery of operating costs through the collection of admission fees.

A large proportion of the Tote Board's donations goes towards social support. Over the last five years, the Board has donated $1.2 billion or almost half of all its donations to the social sector. In FY2012 alone, donations to the social sector were about $500 million, or 46% of donations for that year.

This includes the Tote Board Social Service Fund, through which programmes for the needy and disadvantaged are supported. Another example is the Tote Board Community Healthcare Fund (TBCHF) which supports community-based preventive healthcare programmes and builds capabilities in the Intermediate and Long-Term Care sector to enable providers to offer better and more affordable care.

I should add that the Tote Board positions itself as complementing Government programmes, not substituting for Government. In fact, the Board does not fund projects which it deems to be basic Government programmes. Instead, it seeks, for example, to uplift capabilities, and work with its community partners to pilot new or innovative programmes to help the needy and disadvantaged.

The Government plays the major role in supporting social services and programmes to help the needy. For FY2012 alone, the Government spent about $1.25 billion on targeted benefits for the bottom 20% of Singaporean households, or about $6,000 per household. It includes the Workfare Income Supplement, childcare subsidies, educational bursaries and means-tested healthcare subsidies.

Tote Board's annual report, which contains a summary of donations made, is tabled in Parliament. Members were notified of this when the last annual report was tabled in September last year. Besides being available at the National Library, the annual report can now also be viewed on Tote Board's website.

Mdm Speaker, I thank the Minister of State for answering my question. I would like to ask a supplementary question. If the two conservatories charge about $20 per entry or less for senior citizens, is it enough to cover the maintenance and, if not, who covers the other side of the maintenance to run these two domes?

Mdm Speaker, I thank the Member Mrs Chiam for her question. The conservatories are supposed to make full recovery on the operating costs, so they will have to assess the level of attendance at the conservatories and also adjust their admission fees accordingly. I should just add for interest that since the Gardens have opened, about 4.1 million visitors have been to the Gardens, and just over one-third visit the conservatories. This is still very early days yet. The conservatories will have to make an assessment and plan accordingly once the attendance numbers are more stabilised over time.