Genting Gets the Singapore I.R. - Smart Political Move

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/246100/1/.html

Oh I'm sure Genting got the Sentosa IR on merit, everything in its proposal having been tried, tested and nothing too weird, but the political benefits couldn't have hurt.

All along I'd been saying in face-to-face though not online that Kerzner's "robotic fish" would be too... robotic... heh, and Eighth Wonder's Harry's Island was just too "tacky"; not to mention too kiss-a&*@ - given that Lee Kuan Yew is also known as Harry Lee. Lots of Singaporeans must have winced at the obvious sucker-u**er connotations of the name.

But the clincher - I speculate - and this this is never admitted in the official grounds of decision - is that a failure to award to Genting would have resulted in intense, totally unfriendly and uncertain competition with the region's most established (by far) resorts operator. Genting's operations in Australia (Perth - Burswood), the Phillipines and finally in Malaysia where the casino is a prosperous national landmark in a majority-Muslim country clearly viewable from Kuala Lumpur (more than a hundred kilometres away) - on a good day - gave it a location-specific performance record nobody else could match, least of all the angmolang from Las Vegas.

Giving it to Genting totally killed the idea of a Universal theme park in Southern Johor (in consideration since 1998, when Renong still ran Nusajaya), co-opted Genting into making the resort work together with all its other operations and not in do-or-die competition against them, and was tightly worded enough to minimise any risk that Genting would try a typical Microsoft "buy-it-to-kill-it" strategy. As for political risk vis-a-vis Malaysia (always a difficult relationship where Singapore is concerned), Lim Goh Tong & Co owe nothing to the Malay-dominated government of Malaysia; Malaysia is fortunate to have received what it did (and is, to receive what it still does) by way of tax revenues and other tourism-related benefits from the Genting group and if Goh Tong had to he'd leave Malaysia with his whole family and business in a flash, say, if PAS came to power in the Federal government.

All in, the correct decision to make, which is nothing less than what I would expect of the world's best civil service.

LMT