The Big Read: The Sports Hub nightmare – what went wrong according to insiders, and can the Government run it better?

SINGAPORE: When he first heard the news last week that the Government was taking over the full running of the Singapore Sports Hub, Mr Poh Yu Khing, 49, was glad that it can finally be used for the purposes as intended by the authorities.

After all, the misaligned goals of various parties in the public-private partnership (PPP) had not only doomed the project from the start according to some insiders, they also made the lives of those working on the project a living nightmare.  

As the first chief operating officer and director of strategic marketing and partnerships at Sports Hub Pte Ltd (SHPL), Mr Poh — who spent 13 years of his life on the project, the bulk of it as project director at Sport Singapore (SportSG) – knew better than most what it took to get the massive undertaking up and running. 

In fact, the stress of the job brought about many sleepless nights for Mr Poh, even causing him to sink into depression. 

“I will tell you honestly, a lot of us went through difficult times because we were trying so hard to make it work. And so I don’t think it was for a lack of trying. I just think that structurally there is something wrong,” he told TODAY. 

Mr Poh left SHPL in December 2015 – just 18 months after the Sports Hub opened its doors to the public. 

Apart from Mr Poh, six other former SHPL employees – including senior executives – across various job functions also spoke about the immense pressures and difficulties they had faced in sustaining the mega project.

In separate interviews with TODAY, they spoke about deep lying issues that plagued the project from the get-go. But everything boiled down to this: A disconnect between the interests of the Government and the private firms, and a partnership only in name that was