The People's Association made a mistake and used an old invitation
list instead of an updated one.
That is how it ended up inviting and then uninviting former
People's Action Party Member of Parliament and presidential
candidate Dr Tan Cheng Bock to a Chinese New Year garden party.
The party is an annual event for past and present grassroots
leaders and this year's is taking place this Sunday evening at the
Istana.
That was the explanation given by Mr Lim Swee Say, the deputy
chairman of the PA and labour chief, in response to media queries
on Friday hours after Dr Tan posted on his Facebook page a status
update on being uninvited.
"It is most unfortunate that PA made the mistake of using the old
list instead of the updated list. We are sorry for the error, and
this is why I phoned Mr Tan and the other affected invitees
personally to explain the mistake, and followed up with personal
e-mails to apologise again," Mr Lim said.
He added that the list of invitees is reviewed and refreshed
periodically to allow a wider base of people who serve the
community to attend the yearly reception.
"The most recent review was conducted a few months ago. Instead of
inviting all ex-advisers to grassroots organisations repeatedly for
20, 30 years or even longer, we decided to limit the list to only
ex-advisers who stood down in the immediate past general election,"
he added.
Mr Lim did not say how many invitees were affected by this mistake,
or who they are.
He added that he was "heartened that Mr Tan very graciously
accepted my explanation over the phone" and is "surprised that he
now brings this up publicly as an issue".
Dr Tan's post has gathered almost 2,000 likes and more than 800
shares since it was put online on Friday morning.
He told The Straits Times that he decided to write about in on
Facebook because many grassroots leaders had asked if he would be
attending the event.
ST
