A MAJOR gift to the Peranakan Museum comes once in a lifetime.
By inappropriate handling, the museum has deprived Singaporeans of
a major Peranakan antique collection ('Museum returns 'major gift'
to donors'; last Wednesday).
Surely, this must not happen again.
Australia has a government-funded cultural gifts programme which
has a well-considered process that ensures a transparent and
thriving relationship between donors and recipient
institutions.
Apart from the usual experts, the programme's vetting committee
comprises a tax department official. European countries and the
United States have similarly well-considered programmes.
Under the programme, the donors can claim a tax deduction for
their gifts. Valuers must be vetted and approved by the committee
and tax deductions are allowed only upon the committee's approval.
Recipient bodies must obtain the committee's approval for their
programmes which are reviewed every five years.
Valuation is a stringent but fair process decided jointly by the
committee, the approved valuers and the donor.
The Australian programme preserves the cordial relationship
between the recipient museum and the donor.
Museums today cannot afford to disconcert serious collectors
like Mr and Mrs Tan Eng Sian who donated the Peranakan collection,
which the museum returned. Such collectors can benefit museums
through regular loans, generous gifts and eventual bequests if the
museums treat them appropriately.
For such benefactors, the significance of the tax deduction is
its recognition of the value of their donation, not the deduction
itself. Antiques and art are now so expensive that most museums
cannot afford to buy them any more. Corporate governance has so
severely constrained government and corporate citizens that it is
hard to justify buying art and antiques.
Most museums acquire their collections by cash donations or in
kind from serious collectors.
The tax deduction is only an incentive. The low tax rate in
Singapore reduces this incentive, hence the need to make it 200per
cent tax deductible. It is not a tax rebate.
That the Peranakan Museum - a national institution - would
inconvenience a potential patron and benefactor by accepting his
gift based on a valuation of $15 million by a valuer appointed by
the museum, and then proceed to change that valuation through two
subsequent lower valuations without due process is beyond me.
The manner in which it was done showed poor governance and was a
disastrous public relations exercise.
It is time we had a proper programme for cultural gifts.
Dr Tan Chai Thiam
